


A Winter's Rose Meets a RWBY

by HappyWonKinobi



Series: Riders of the End [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - Freeform, Gen, Hydra (mythology), Team RWBY - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 11:44:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 57,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2546345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyWonKinobi/pseuds/HappyWonKinobi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when a Monster, a Saint, a Rogue, and a Blacksmith meet a naive Huntress-in-Training, an Heiress, a Cat, and a Berserker? Why, monsters, of course!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. After work relaxation?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so here's a little note for those of you unfamiliar with the universe of RWBY: most of the confusing stuff that is particular to the place (such as Grimm, Aura, Dust, Semblance, Hunters, etc.) will be explained in-story. That way the new guys aren't left behind right at the start. Though, in my opinion, if you haven't seen RWBY yet, then you absolutely must do so. Not for the story, but because the plot and comedy of the show is just absolutely awesome! You can find it on the Roosterteeth website, roosterteeth.com , and it's highly recommended.
> 
> Also, for everybody who reads my stories, this story is actually already complete, fully written, I just need to type it up and post it, so you don't need to worry about not getting more. Sort of. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Additionally, the title is only a working title. I've never been good at making up titles or summaries, so they may change once I actually decide upon a good title or when I get a better inspiration about how to describe this story.
> 
> Now, this story is absolutely amazing in that it actually took me 2 months of solid work to get it done, and it just went out of control, from a simple one-shot idea to a huge, multi-thousand word full-on story! In fact, I had to cut it into chapters and arcs even! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it! :)
> 
>  
> 
> Also, this was most of my inspiration for the main characters' main appearances (and Rose's combat look, but not her normal look), other than my own brain and The White Rose of Vermillion (awesome story here on fanfiction.net, by the way, you should look it up): funblade.tumblrpost/89827001153/xuunies-future-au-vn-rwby-sprites-finalized

 

In Winter Rose's General Store, a young woman was stocking the shelves, rather precariously perched upon various furniture as she sang and did her job. Currently, she was finishing a pile of jars and singing about being held, safe and warm, in the middle of a winter's storm.

Then she jumped off the chair and grabbed a large pile of boxes and began to sing a new song as she jumped onto a table and began to put away the boxes that go there.

She was a rather tall individual, wearing a looser black-sleeved shirt that hugged while not being revealing with red on her shoulders down her sleeves in a pair of long stripes, a set of simple black cargo pants with red accents on the side pockets, and, currently, calloused bare feet that seemed surprisingly delicate, even when you consider the size and seeming power in those callouses and scars.

From the way she looked and moved about, it was fairly obvious she was at least decently fit, but when you were looking and she didn't know, that's when the most striking observations about her were there to see.

She acted happy and carefree, but her bearing, no matter how demure, was that of a powerful and weary warrior. Her steps were quiet and sure, ready for flight, stealth, or attack at any moment. Her innocent face had a certain hardness to it, and when her red-frosted shoulder length black hair wasn't covering her right side, you could see a black handkerchief with a red rose covering the right eye, but letting her sparkling silver eye on the left show.

Then she was getting to the end of her song, humming for a bit before she began to sing and began her last stack of boxes in their area. It was also the biggest pile.

"Oh, he will wait for - **One Day! While he was waiting for the trolley, he had a hat!** " She sang strongly and even switched voices as she sang as well. " _My high silk hat!_   **He wore it high upon his head so proudly, a beautiful hat! A hat, like this which makes him feel so grandly, now fancy this, and fancy that! The splendor of his hat in all its majesty,** _Like a king! In a royal cap! I feel so swell and handsome in my hat! I bet that others wish they had, in fact, a hat as this, a hat as that, a hat so fine a high silk haaaat! Oh, Mr. Art Bigotti, now waddya think of that?!_ "

"I think it sounds quite silly." A spritely male voice said from behind her with some amusement.

Now, while she had been aware that someone had come in thanks to the bell on the door, she hadn't been expecting a response to the lyrics, and so overbalanced and nearly lost her stack as she fell. A box almost fell, but decided it was comfy on the top, and she smiled. "Nailed it."

The pale-skinned man raised his right eyebrow. "You're lying on the floor. Somehow, I don't think that qualifies." He stated.

"I didn't drop my boxes, did I?" She fired back with an exultant smile. She carefully moved the boxes off her belly and got up to talk to her friend and customer. "Besides which, the song was supposed to be silly. It was called a Silly Song, even. Anyway, what can I do for you, Mr. Arbigotti?"

"Well, I'd like my usual and, maybe, a bit of hairgel?" He asked with a smile of feigned self-conscious embarrassment as he stroked his rather large afro. It was a game they always played.

She smiled. "I still don't think you need it Mr. B." She hopped off to collect the man's items. Whenever she grabbed the dog bones for him, she was reminded of the fact that she is secretly convinced that he was secretly a dog Faunus, but always kept her mouth shut. It was better not knowing for sure, what with the prejudice against the half-human/half-animal people. Still bothered her that littlest bit that hatred could spring up over such a minute detail, but she'd had her ass kicked by the other half of what she called "People" before, and she knew that a wounded pride was an easy source of hate.

After putting his stuff into a box, like usual, she brought it up to the counter and rang up his pricing, along with the hair product her roommate liked, which she pretended to slip into the box as stealthily as possible. the truth was that he knew what she was actually doing, just as she did, so it was pointless to be tricky about it. Still a fun game though.

She sent him on his way and went back to restocking the shop. As she got to the last box, she was distracted by it, and instead of shelving it, she opened it. It was a weapons magazine, filled with interesting pictures of exciting weapons and add-ons, like that scythe with a variable chaingun attachment or that rapier that could turn into a dart or a ball and chain! Or even better, a recallable dart!

She had a lot of fun looking through it until it disappeared and a stern voice tried to chide her. "Rose! We're not supposed to open our own merchandise!"

Rose looked up at her magazine's thief with a sad expression. The woman in front of her was dressed all in white from her slightly padded rider's pants and sensible non-expensive (but not really all that cheap) shoes to her simple coat covering a white shirt which had always reminded Rose of a Civil War military jacket and even down to the very last hair on the woman's face, even those beautiful eyebrows giving shade to those breathtakingly sparkling ice blue orbs (which were trying to be as severe as the face they sat upon), were a pure white, whiter than most snows Rose had ever seen (and she'd seen a lot of snow). Rose could tell the other woman was really trying hard to keep the genuine displeasure on her face rather than the soft smile trying to burst its way out.

"Don't worry Snow." Rose said with a smile. "It's not yours anymore."

Snow-white brows furrowed in confusion. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Rose pointed at the cash drawer. "I paid for it. My money's right under the drawer, just waiting to be put in the drawer, and the rest are on the shelves."

Snow looked and saw the small pile of Lien under the cash register and sighed, allowing her smile to come out, if colored with concern. She turned back to the red-frosted brunette and sat down next to her on the step. "I just worry about you Rose, that's all."

"Please, don't." Rose said with a soft smile. "I'm a big girl, I can take care of us."

Snow sighed again, The smile fading this time. "I know that. I know that you're a big girl, but we have to be really careful with you. If we aren't, we may not be able to deal with the fallout."

For a second, Rose wanted to say "Then don't.", but held her tongue. She knew better. Instead, she smiled softly and said, "Alright then." Then she drew the snow-haired angel into a soft and slightly awkward hug, staying ever attentive of her strength. Then they reluctantly drew apart and studied each other with a tad bit of worry, just like always, And just like always, they found nothing wrong. They hadn't for over a year, since a few days after their last Opening Anniversary, in fact.

That's when Snow noticed Rose's lack of shoes. "Rose, where're your shoes?" She asked a little dangerously.

Think of a lie, quick! "Uh, I just lost 'em somewhere is all." Nice save. They're actually right where Rose always "loses" them, shoe basket in the Bedroom above the store. She always forgets them or loses them when they're there. Sad, but true.

Unless she just really wants to not wear shoes as much as possible. Always a possibility.

"Honestly, for someone who can remember every minute detail about completely random and unimportant things, you have such a hard time remembering to grab your shoes when you take them off."

'Actually, that's deliberate.' Rose thought as she fought to keep a downcast look on her face rather than her smirk.

A small pile of bills were pushed into Rose's hands, and she looked up at Snow's unusually soft expression with a confused and questioning look on her face.

"Here, go get a new pair. Something really nice this time." She said softly.

"Are you sure?" Rose asked with genuine concern. Neither one of them really did this sort of thing at all, being very strict protectors of their moneys.

"Yes, I'm sure. The store's doing well enough that we can easily afford a few nice things every now and then, between takeout nights."

Rose smiled gratefully and Snow smiled back. "Nice to have money again, isn't it? A lot better than when we struggled to pay the rent." And better than having to face the possibility of Bankruptcy, like last year.

"Yeah." Snow stood and pulled Rose up after. "Now go and get some shoes, you dunce." She said with a playful push and a wider smile.

"Alright, my Angel." And with that, the brunette dashed off at a sedate pace, unaware of the sad and concerned expression that stayed on Snow's face after Rose left. It was easy to smile with her in the room most times and days, but she and the other three were continually worried about their "Happy" member, knowing what she had done and what she could do from first-hand experience. Maybe one day she'd stop caring and start killing again.

But to be honest? The rest of the world could go straight to Hell for all they cared, but if any other member of the team, Rose especially, if they needed help, they were immediately top priority automatically. The others will always drop whatever they're doing, no matter how important, if any other of what little remains of their family is in trouble.

No matter what, they will survive, together.

As family.

* * *

"Oh, come on you piece of-" She muttered at the inanimate object in front of her. She groaned with the strain for a moment before a loud clang sounded throughout the room, followed by a string of profanity including something about a donkey mule and the object's mother. She finally got fed up and just punched it. That was followed by 3 clangs, moaning in pain, and the "Owie Dance" as performed by the young woman.

When she was done "dancing", she glared at the offending vehicle, which now had a fist-shaped dent right above where the pathetic and broken bit lay next to her tools broken by trying to take out the rusted piece of junk: an extractor and a wrench. "All right, I'm done!" She shouted at it. "I'm done with you and I'm taking a shower." She declared, staring the vehicle down. Useless, she knew, as the vehicle had no intelligence and no ability to affect her at all, as far as she knew, but she'd found that saying it out loud helped to keep from useless toil whenever she warred with her need to fix things.

After a few more seconds staring the poor hunk-o'-junk down, she managed to leave it alone. This time, she won against her need to keep fixing it past her patience, but it was honestly a close thing.

When she got to the bathroom connected to her bedroom, she paused to examine herself in the full-length mirror.

She stood tall and, usually confident, though she was currently exhausted and defeated because of that one stupid BOLT! She resisted the urge to punch the mirror, knowing it'd cost to buy a new one, and instead punched the wall behind her, watching the concrete crumble around her fist and winced at the reminder of her still new strength.

She brought her mind back to the mirror to try and ignore that crummy piece of steel.

Right now, she was in her mechanicking clothes: A black tube top with red hems that her "sister" Rose had picked out for her last Christmas (since it was designed to cover her sides and back, but not her very well-defined six-pack abs while perfectly conforming to her body, and because she couldn't find the design anywhere, she was thoroughly convinced the brunette had made it herself just for her), a pair of black jogging shorts (which may have also been handsewn), a set of reinforced cut-finger gloves, and a pair of steel-toed boots. Every single well-defined muscle in her larger-than-normal arms and legs were plain to see, other than her left forearm, which was wrapped up in bandages after a particularly nasty burn a few days ago. Normally, she also wore a tan trenchcoat, but that was left in the room because today was an inside day. Her kind face framed rather unique purple eyes, just a few shades off high-quality Amethyst, while her face was framed by rather beautiful and bountiful butt-length blazing golden hair.

She stripped off her clothing. When she was younger, she would've paused to admire her body. If she'd had it then, that is.

Of course, that was 50 years and too many funerals ago. So instead she just stepped into the shower and cleaned.

Afterwards, she toweled off the worst of the water, put on the same underwear, shorts, and top that she'd been wearing before the shower and let them soak up the rest of the water while letting her hair air-dry. Since she just wanted to relax now without thinking about work, she went to the front door of the apartment she lived in above the shop and made sure to press the button that locked all the entrances shut and then went to her favorite fat and comfy recliner chair and melted right into it with a sigh. She reached for the end table next to her for the cigar box and the remote.

In the past few years, she and her family had had to get used to some rather frightening changes beyond the cosmetic (like having naturally sun-yellow hair, rather than grey), like the fact that, suddenly, they were all faster and stronger than should be possible and were also nearly invincible. They didn't want attention, just a quiet life. A safe one.

She snorted at that thought as she stuck a cigar in her mouth and and thought about her own life for just a moment. There were other changes they'd had to learn to live with as well. One of the most noticeable and, by now, most comfortable of which was the fact that all four of them could now sprout small gouts of flame from their fingertips, like she was doing to light her cigar right now while using the remote to turn on the speakers for some relaxing music.

As she took a deep breath of her cigar, she resisted the urge to spit it out. She took it out and exhaled a cloud of vivid purple smoke and let the music wash over her. For a moment, she contemplated her cigar. It was rather small, practically a filter-less cigarette, but it wasn't something you could actually buy. Other than the fact that it was homemade, it used herbs they'd had to grow themselves because they couldn't find them anywhere else, and had had to use the last cigar they'd had, which had some pretty crummy herbs when compared to all the others they'd ever had or smoked.

From what they'd been told and had seen, the cigars were far from healthy. But they helped Rose to calm down, and helped the four of them to relax and fall asleep at night, and to be honest, that's all that mattered. She knew Rose was a maniac, but she still didn't believe Snow's stories about the woman. And besides, they were familiar. They were a remnant of home.

The blonde gave a snort at that thought, as they were now living in the world of Remnant. She took another puff of her cigar as the song changed. Now, it was Money, by Pink Floyd, another remainder of what was left of home. Rather fitting now that she had a nice, steady income.

Then she began to sing along with the song. That was another pair of odd things about this new place they'd lived in for a little over 3 years. See, by a few months before their forced relocation, they'd all learned to sing well enough to calm Rose down during a panic attack. In fact, she'd been the last, and it'd taken her that long because she'd been unable to carry a tune so bad that she was banned for life from the bard's college when she'd tried to enter so many years ago. It's still weird that their singing was the only way to really calm the girl down when she was incoherent like that. However, while she'd gotten up to "Passable" as a singing voice before, here in Remnant, it was breathtakingly beautiful, even to her own ears, similarly to the others, and the four of them all gained crystal-clear memories that were diamond-sharp. The door opened and her roommate came in. She was the only other person who would be here today that had the keys, since they own the building. The blonde put her cigar back in her mouth as she looked her partner over.

The older woman stood taller than she did an had a perfect poker face decorating her fair feline features. She would never say that out loud, partly because of local racism against those part-animal people who were normal people, just with a few animal features like cat ears or monkey tails or other similarly non-disfiguring changes (what were they called again? Faunus, that's right), but mostly because she was still dealing with her childhood issues about those cute purple-black cat ears hiding among similarly colored strands of hair. Really, those ears and seductively cunning amber eyes are her only non-human traits, and they just made her more beautiful. As usual for coming home from work, she was wearing what the blonde thought of as a Russian Officer-style overcoat that was completely black except for the 4 golden buttons on her front above the oversized belt on her belly, the gold trimmings on the felt spauldrons and the golden buttons. And the grey armband on her upper left arm which is the same gray as her cuffs, other than a black flower printed on it. A firey belladonna, if she wasn't mistaken. Probably was, though.

Also as usual, she looked supremely confident and today there was a small smirk decorating her face, framed by that long black hair that high-quality silk pretends to be that was flowing as she floated along. Though, if you knew how to look, which she most definitely did, you'd notice she looked incredibly tired as well.

"Rough day?" The beauty asked.

The blonde nodded a simple yes and took another puff. Purple smoke once again decorated the air as she asked, "You?"

"Difficult, but worth it." The raven-haired woman replied with an air of satisfaction. She grabbed the fresh cigar thrown at her out of the air without deigning to look at it while going over to the fridge as the blonde waited. "Yes, I got the lube for you." She added in a bored tone as she grabbed a pair of ice cool unopened beers (sometimes, beer was left alone in the fridge until it was completely undrinkable. Not often, but it happened. Only to open beers though, for some odd reason) before she shut the fridge. It was nice to know she'd gotten it. The stuff was a little hard to get when they went anywhere other than Winter Rose and it was her doing the shopping, mostly because of her own impossibly high standards and unwillingness to get anything less for those dang rusty joints and checkballs in the various parts of various vehicles. What, you thought she was thinking of something else? "You look nice. Kind of glowy, in fact." She said as she came back into the living room and handing one of the beers to the blonde to open, the other already being sipped by the faunus woman. Damn she was quiet.

"Thanks, I just had a shower." It actually hurt a little that the woman hand't been looking at her when she said it. "So, what's the latest in my favorite cat-girl's life?"

Said cat-girl gave her a completely ineffectual light glare and gave a little head motion, telling her to turn on the TV, which the blonde obliged to do. "work, met someone idiotic, got stuck in traffic for 20 minutes." A shrug. "the usual. What about our favorite blacksmith-turned-mechanic, Dragon?"

Dragon glared at her, Oh, she was going to play  _that_  game today, hunh? Well two can play at that just as well! "Well,  _Blake_ , I finished off the car dropped off last night, turned out to be a power flow problem with the Dust playing hell on the rest of the car because it interacted with Auras badly, which was a bitch and a half to replace as I had to take the entire thing apart just to reach the problem, which I've told off the manufacturer on before, and  _then_  I had to put the whole thing back to together, which took  _extra_ -long because it fucking broke 3 of my bottom-dollar tools and my good stuff is locked up for absolutely no- _fucking_ -reason, and  _then_  on that truck, you know the one brought in for a tune-up and to fix a minor problem causing it to smoke like a steam engine? Well I broke a rusted bolt's head  _and_  the wrench somehow, which would've hurt like a  _screamer_  rather than a bitch and a half  _and_  had to have a hospital visit to surgically remove said pieces of wrench if I wasn't that frickin' durable and  _then_ , my Easy-Out broke while trying to pull the rest of the bolt out too!" She was shouting by now, but they both knew she just needed to vent and wouldn't calm down until she'd had her fill. It was a relatively normal thing for the pair. "The  _only_  reason that fuckin' shitty bolt is even on the floor downstairs is because I punched the truck and the threads opened up, which means I need a replacement!"

"Was it Aluminum?" Blake asked. She was asking if the part she'd punched was made from Aluminum, which wasn't as solid as steel. When enough pressure was applied to Aluminum, it would crumple and fail, which was good for some things and made them relatively easy to crush and also easy to get the parts for oftentimes, but if the same amount of pressure was put to steel, the part was simply sent flying like a meteor or a guillotine. The brevity of the question was partly habit, but probably mostly because Dragon was so angry and when she was on a roll like this it was easier to let out the steam if it wasn't allowed to build.

"No! It was one of those frickin' things that are supposedly indestructible! Hurt like a fuckin' bitch when I dented it. She had a feral smile as she said that last bit as she focused on the fact that she'd actually dented it. The smile faded as she continued. "It'll cost extra time and money to deal with that mistake, even if I  _hadn't_  dented it, which means that I'll have to tell the guy his truck'll need a few extra days to get the part and install it and you know that  _that_ 'll be fun. Might overcharge him a bit more just for that." She had calmed down a lot by then, her last words a mutter that Blake wasn't supposed to hear.

"So, you're already overcharging him, huh?" Blake asked seemingly indifferently, but with a decidedly dangerous edge to her voice.

Dragon pointed her cigar at Blake accusingly as she defended herself. " "Hey, I am working a respectable and registered business, but I gotta make money so that A), I can keep up with the latest models and technologies so that I can actually work on them; B), to order the parts in the first place, which can reach thousands of dollars quick and easy in some cases; and C), so that I can pay myself a salary and your cut when you help as well. Otherwise, I can't eat, and I can't help. Besides, according to some buddies, I actually overcharge a whole lot less than most other non-cheats in the city and I do better work, which made a few of them say I should charge a lot more." They were all very valid and very true points, and that's not counting the side work she did for a whole lot less that also helped to keep her solvent.

"Hmm." Was all Blake said for a moment as Dragon finished cooling off her anger, eyes closed. Her words seemed to pacify her roommate, so they just sat there in the relative silence, drinking up the music and occasionally their beer. "Which part?"

Dragon was confused for half a second before she remembered their conversation. "Thirty-eight-oh-five. 28-inch." That was the part number for the supposedly indestructible Dust Regulator she'd destroyed, followed by the size of this particular model. It wasn't exactly the first time she'd done this, so they had a system down pat by now.

"I'll put in the order." Blake said as the TV was muted.

Dragon put her beer down on a coaster and nodded without opening her eyes. Then, no warning whatsoever, she sneezed, sending her cigar flying and a puff of heat, which was probably flame, after it. Oh, so that's what the problem was. For the car with power-regulation trouble. Dust-powered vehicles don't usually react well to Flame Dust. She'll have to tell Danny when she gives him his car back.

She opened her eyes and saw the cigar tumbling through the air and, completely on instinct, she dove after it and managed to grab it before it hit the ground. A second later, she realized that she must've been going faster than your average car can actually go. In truth, from what she'd heard, only Hunters can actually move faster than a speeding vehicle, and she wasn't even slightly winded. It wasn't the first time this had happened, but they were getting used to it, if ever so slowly.

A second later, Blake's simple response from the kitchen pretty much summed up the situation.

"That's still pretty freaky." Then, probably without realizing it, she displayed a similar speed as she went from the edge of the living room to the family PDA/phone/tablet thing (the Scroll, yeah, that's what it's called.) in the kitchen on the fridge in the blink of an eye, put in the order, and seemed to blur back to her chair as Dragon hurried to do the same. Still new, but they were getting used to it.

They relaxed for a while longer until the news came on. The TV was still muted, but they could see that it was displaying a live feed of the city of Vail, where they currently resided, as a large demonic creature was rampaging through the city towards the marketplace. The gigantic pure black creature with white bone plates with red lines over it's head and face and other areas that weren't protected by white bone spikes or claws looked like a very large bear. It was an Ursa, a fairly common Grimm, which were an ever-present threat to the people of Vail and the other 3 kingdoms of Remnant.

Dragon and Blake looked at each other for a moment, worried. They wanted to help, had basically lived to help for years as they killed Grimm, back before. But for the past few years, they had done their best to keep from standing out, and killing Grimm, especially in easy view of the public eye, was not something that really contributed well to that.

Then they saw 2 figures, on in red and black, one in white, chasing after the big black hairy bear-thing, and they relaxed a little. There were Hunters on the job (well, Huntsmen or Huntresses are the more 'proper' term, depending on gender, but Rose said Hunters, so they didn't really care), people who were trained for years to kill Grimm. They could probably handle it.

But then the decision was made for them. Through the special bond they shared with the others of the family, they felt the fear and anger of one of them powerfully coursing through, before anxious fear flowed as well. The anxious fear had come from themselves and Snow, which meant that Rose was in trouble! Knowing her, she was probably at the same area as the Ursa.

"I'm driving." Dragon said as she threw the keys to Blake. That way, by the time she got down to Blake and her homemade motorcycle, after grabbing her trench coat and weapons, of course, it would be primed to go. At the coat closet, she grabbed her coat, a shotgun, and a sword for herself, a rifle for Blake (who probably still had a sword from her earlier travels today), and an emergency sword for Rose, just in case. Snow could take care of herself. She strapped the swords to her back, under the trenchcoat, and hung the shotgun by it's strap over her shoulder, keeping the rifle in her hand as she ran for the balcony. She leapt off the balcony to land next to the 'cycle, whereupon she tossed the rifle to Blake and jumped on, enjoying the feel of the motorcycle's smooth rumble for a split second before putting her head back in the game as she waited for Blake's signal that she wouldn't fall off.

"Floor it."

'Don't need to tell me twice.' Was Dragon's only thought as she put the pedal to the metal. Hopefully they'd make it in time.

* * *

"Where are you Rose?" Snow asked the air worriedly. She was pacing a hole into the floor as she waited for her roommate to show up. "We were supposed to have take-out tonight and I don't know the numbers or where you put the menus." She griped softly, trying to distract herself from her relatively minor worry about someone who has proven capable of keeping herself safe and sound, unnoticed to boot. "Hell, you were supposed to be back an hour ago because shoe shopping on our budget is really quick according to you: just find a pair you like the look of that'll be useful that fits and walk out with them after paying, like a regular guy. And yes, I know that it takes like an hour to get there on foot, because you like walking, but this is getting ridiculous!"

Snow froze as she heard the police radio Rose had insisted they buy and keep on all the time crackle to life. Normally, Vail was a nice and fairly crime-free place, so it didn't usually do much more than take up space and money on their energy bill. Her first thought was that it would involve Rose. But then it turned out that it was just Dispatch telling car 21-C to check on a reported homicide, and she relaxed.

Then it spoke up again and she tensed, filled with dread as she listened to an officer's panicked ramblings.

"Dispatch! This is Officer Zib! I need to know what the proper code is for 'Get me the fuck outta here, there's a frickin'  _Ursa_  on the loose!'? 'Cause I need to call in one of those." Officer Zib sounded awfully calm for having what was obviously his first encounter with one of the bear-like Grimm. 'Probably close to losing it' is what Snow's analytical mind said was most probable. Experience too, as she'd seen a few too many fellow Hunters calm to the point of hysteria, and a good number of those were ticking time bombs, waiting to go insane and start killing people.

That was when she decided to get ready, preparations and focus drowning out what the dispatcher said in return. if there was an Ursa, then perhaps killing it might distract her from the problem that was Rose.

"Oh, thank God! There are Huntresses here. Three of 'em!"

That made her pause. Hunters of this day don't tend to notice the outside world unless it has to do with Grimm or incredibly dangerous high-end crime. And someone asks politely. Why? Because just like an unattended Rose, Hunters, whether they be Huntsmen or Huntresses, are incredibly dangerous. What might take numerous ordinary soldiers to kill in 5 minutes, suffering heavy losses, would probably take a simply 'average' Hunter by themself 2 minutes to kill, suffering only minor wounds. It would take any one of them (Snow, Rose, Blake, or Dragon) even less time and they'd come away unscathed, but then they had higher standards than even the exceptional Hunters.

Either way, if there were Huntresses on the job, then she would not be needed. That, and she didn't want to get all messy.

"Wait, they're not Huntresses! They're two trainees and a fast girl with no shoes! I recognize Ruby Rose's scythe from last week!"

It was the "fast girl with no shoes" comment that got her moving. In a flash, Snow grabbed the white cape that she'd bought on a whim months ago and then the large sword she'd forged years ago with Dragon watching carefully to keep her from screwing it up as well as a pair of sub-machine guns that she'd sto-  _scavenged_  from a pair of dead mobsters before she'd bought the cape and was on her motorcycle and roaring off to find her family member before Zib said "Ruby Rose".

Hopefully she wouldn't be too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank Shadowmaster68 for his wonderful review and his agreement to look over my story as it comes out and look for typos and such. 
> 
> I'd also like to note that he pointed out the singing at the beginning and wondered if I let Autocorrect make a typo. In fact, I did not. Mr. Art Bigotti is the character in the song (which you'll find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9KqphtT5fs ; good song. Funny too, and silly of course, though Rose was singing the Ultimate Silly Songs Countdown Credits song remix, which you can find a fan-'edited' version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-LWb2_clqo ; now, while the video isn't the best, it's well-done for a fan-made 'quilt', so to speak, and the audio is the song directly, so you can simply listen and enjoy). Meanwhile, the person she talked to, whom ended up buying dog treats and hair products, is Mr Arbigotti. Different character completely! (he's not an asparagus) And he's important to the story, though you'll probably pretty much only see why he's important at the end of the arc.
> 
> Other than that, not much to tell. Hope you enjoyed (and please tell me if you did, *beyond* pressing the Kudos button) and I'll see you guys next chapter! :)


	2. Questions from a Red Stranger

 

"Oh, darn you!" Rose lashed out at the latest source of irritation to try and stop the mocking voice, though she stayed careful of her strength as she glared and slammed it.

"Game Over." The Light Gun Rail Shooter that had eaten all the rest of her spare coins before she could beat it announced to the world, oblivious of the death glares the machine was garnering in the process. "Try Again?"

"No." Rose spat out childishly. "Shut up." Then she rather maturely walked away without kicking it.

After a moment, she sped back to the arcade machine to put in her initials for the high score leaderboard. _No one_  would be stealing her high score. Not until she could beat it, at least. Probably in the process of beating the game completely.

Eh, she'll probably do it tomorrow unless something comes up.

After a minute of directionless wandering, she decided to sit on that park bench she'd noticed earlier; the one by the tree in the middle of the mall's quadrangle of green grass with a clear view on all sides. It was a nice place to sit unbothered by the people around her as they moved around in their lives, seemingly unaware of the danger they lived under.

Perhaps they actually were.

Still, it was a nice, unclouded day as the sun set, painting the sky with beautiful purples and oranges with red slowly creeping in, and the feeling of the grass under her feet once again was absolutely glorious!

Now, this was not to actually say that she had blown off Snow's command to buy shoes for herself. Any chance to spend their rather tightly-controlled money gifted in an act of love was a truly wonderful thing, even if it  _was_  for buying shoes, the useless things. In fact, first thing she did when she got to the marketplace was to find and buy a pair of beautiful black combat shoes with solid silver buckles over the laces with red highlights in the laces and on the sides, which, now that she thought about it, actually reminded her of Penny's shoes. They were both high quality, the solidity, grip, and patterns of the soles were similar, and they were both incredibly durable, as well as having steel in various parts of the actual boot, such as a cup in the toe for additional protection and as a helper to kicks, plates in the sole for additional support/comfort and additional protection from underneath, and similar though smaller plates in the sides for even more protection.

Since just buying those boots didn't even take up half of what Snow had given her for them, she did a little wandering, looking for things that either struck her sense of fancy or really called out to her. Not much actually did, and they didn't really need anything at the moment, so she ended up just wandering for the most part.

That's not to say she didn't buy a few trinkets, including a few things that weren't all that important or amazing, but they were a start. Or something. In fact, she got incredibly lucky with one of the trinkets she bought, as it was something Dragon had lost a long time ago, and it was the last one in stock of a highly popular item, so she snatched it up as fast as possible. Even found something for Blake too! True, they each cost a very pretty penny individually, but they were close enough, which makes it more than worth it.

As for the time spent in the arcade, well, that was accounted for too. Snow's experience with shoe shopping said that it takes at least an hour if there are no distractions at all, and she knew that Rose liked to walk, rather than trusting most vehicles to get her where she goes, which took another hour to walk from the store to the market, and an hour to get back after doing the actual shopping itself.

It wasn't a trust thing, because she did actually trust them, mostly. She just simply preferred her own feet is all.

All together, that meant that Snow believed that it would take her a total of 3 hours if she walked like a normal person (which, she wasn't, what with her super-speed that she still needs a little practice with), which gave her a full 2 and a half hours to screw around after she found the shoes and then found a pair that actually fit, and that was without counting the extra time unsupervised she could squeeze out of the trip when you add in the extra half hour to hour and five minutes Snow would put in as needed when you take into account just how easily distracted the four of them were.

Rose smiled as she watched the sky. Today was a good day, and when she wasn't killing something or teaching or working at their General Store, she liked to just watch the sky. It was always interesting to see how it changed in a city. The few times she'd actually paid attention to the sky as a, well, child wouldn't be the right word, but before she met Snow- no, before she met Blake is a better- more accurate spot. Before meeting Blake, the few times she did pay attention it wasn't anything special. It was light or it was dark, and that was it. Afterwards, she found the stars fascinating. Pretty too.

The sky continued to darken from it's blazing ending as she thought about the time. If she still had another half hour or so before she really needed to get going to the store again. Well, maybe. Something like that. She smiled. Ooh, what to do, what to do

...

'Oooh!' She thought as her eyes widened and her smile turned to a grin when a small speck of white appeared. 'First star tonight! Good omen.' Well, the First star of the Night appearing didn't really solve her current problem, but it was a nice distraction for a bit.

"Weiss! Wait up!" A young voice shouted.

Rose looked away from the second star that appeared, close on the heels of the first, to find out who had shouted and-

The brunette blinked. Wait. What? She blinked again. Nope, still there. Freaky.

There was a red-frosted brunette that looked almost exactly like a younger version of her own self, in a combat skirt and corset combo (nice combat boots though. Wouldn't have gone for the laces or stockings, but it works), chasing after a clearly steaming snow angel, who looked like a younger version of Snow, complete with Prim and Proper Poise and Posture and an icy wall around her emotions to keep others out and never be hurt.

And the precisely pony-tailed ivory girl probably didn't realize that she'd most likely long-since allowed her walls to be broken down enough to let in the other girl, and make her precious, make her hers.

Rose still remembered when she first realized that she'd done that with Snow, and remembered even better and more fondly when Snow realized she'd done it too. Ah, good times. Almost as good as the feasts they'd had after.

She stood up with a happy sigh. Well, at least she has something to do. Better than pattering around in the store, waiting for someone to come in and spend money.

Using her 'Super-Speed', she blurred over to put a hand on the young brunette's shoulder. When she turned to look at the person keeping her back, Rose shook her head. "Don't. She's obviously very angry, and it's probably best to leave her alone, allow her to calm down and cool off before trying to fix whatever it is needs fixing, okay?"

The girl was extraordinarily hesitant to go along with it, so Rose added in "Don't worry about her. From the way she walks with that sword on her hip, she's obviously got combat experience and at least some skill with that sword. That means that she can keep herself safe. She'll be just fine." After another moment, the girl nodded, agreeing to let the other girl go. Rose nodded, acknowledging the girl's acquiescence. 'I should keep her distracted. She's obviously worried, but she just needs to wait for the other girl to come back.' "So, what's your name?" She started simply.

"Um, it's Ruby." She said a little distractedly. "Ruby Rose."

Rose smiled. "That's a nice name." She commented. "Well Ruby Rose, my name, or what I go by anyway, is Rose. Rose Rubellite of the Red Riding Hood." She offered a hand for shaking. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too." Ruby said as she stared off in the direction the girl had walked off in, thus missing the offered hand. Rose wasn't offended. She knew exactly how the girl felt.

She let her hand drop and her eyebrows to raise as she saw the rather large gun strapped into a specialized holster over the girl's hip. "You're in a combat school?" Ruby nodded, still focused on where the other girl, Weiss, Rose thought, was going. "Lemme guess: Signal Academy?"

She shook her head. "Beacon, actually."

Rose's eyebrows rose as she smiled in surprise. "Beacon? I've heard good things about the place. Is it anything like the rumors?" She asked as she put a hand on Ruby's back, gently guiding her away.

"Actually," Ruby paused, still worried by her friend, until she took a breath and allowed the woman to distract her with a small smile. "It's even better."

Rose smiled. She'd be okay. "Well, why don't you tell me about it."

And so she did. It was rather amazing, like a fun sort of college, but with monster killing as well as studying others' mistakes and victories. The students tended to get up to wild shenanigans, especially wild given how psychopathic the general Hunter population has to be to willingly hunt down and kill Grimm, and that was something she could truly appreciate, like the way that the coursework was set up.

It almost sounded like a happier version of the Vermilion Hunters, Rose thought wistfully to herself.

She decided to confirm a few things she'd learned over the years, correct them if they were wrong. "You know," She brought up, interrupting the girl's story about one particularly memorable class that didn't go well. For attention spans anyway. Comedy on the other hand, was rife. "I never actually got a clear picture of this. What exactly  _is_  Aura?"

Ruby blinked. Then got a confused look on her face. "How can you  _not_  know what Aura is?"

Rose shrugged. "I know about it, a little, but like I said, I never really got a good idea exactly what it is. So, can you explain it to me?"

"Well, Aura is basically like an almost physical projection of our souls, which can then be manipulated by conscious thought."

"That really doesn't make sense to me. Could you explain that a little better?"

Ruby hummed in confusion, trying to condense and comprehensibly explain something that everybody knew and needed no real explanation. "Well, when I think of my Aura, when it's actively being used, it kinda feels like the winds brushing through my hair. When Yang's Aura is active like that, it feels a little like being next to an oven."

That's when it clicked for Rose. "OH! It's like the heat that comes off of a fire, except that it's Aura coming off of our souls!"

"Exactly!" Ruby exclaimed with a slightly smug smile on her face, an obvious feeling of pride written in her features, like a teacher being proud of a particularly fast student. She knew that feeling rather well. She remembered that especially well with Kor and Johnny-Boy. "Except that it doesn't just radiate the 'heat' of a soul's fire, it also makes us stronger. Faster. More durable. Able to fight for longer and recover and heal faster. And there are other, more physical things Aura can do, such as walking on walls, allowing a person to change direction in mid-air, and it can even be used a little like a force field, though all those uses of Aura are a lot more difficult and exhausting." Ruby lectured like an expert, making Rose smile even more at the girl.

They were now in the food court of the mall. She scanned the signs, looking for good food to share that would be good for giving a (non-free) doggy bag lunch. Then, once she knew what shop to choose, she distracted Ruby further with a question. "So, now that we've established what Aura is, what's a Semblance?"

Ruby took a moment to consider this subject as well before she began. "A Semblance is basically a more potent distillation of a person's Aura, and it's pretty much unique to each person."

"And what does that mean to me or the average joe without proper knowledge of what Aura is?" Rose asked, curiosity in her voice rather than an arch tone one might expect from her words.

"In other words, it's a bit like a personal weapon that only you can use. You always have it because it's a part of you, though you can't always use it because of exhaustion or other reasons." Rose picked out what they would be eating from the menu as Ruby continued. "Like me. I have an enormous amount of speed. Nobody else can ever keep up with me when I really really try."

That reminded Rose of her own 'super-speed' actually.

"Then there's Yang. She's my sister, she's going to Beacon Academy too. Anyway, she tends to let out flames when she's angry and when she's hurt, she actually gets stronger and more difficult to destroy."

Hunh, that reminded her a whole lot of Dragon, as well as their indestructibility and the little flames they can use.

And, it's kinda odd how the line in front of them for the food suddenly seems a whole lot longer.

"Then there's Blake, she's a part of my team, and she's really awesome! She's like a ninja, and her Semblance allows her to create little images of herself. They don't last long, but they're good distractions and she uses them a lot and really well."

Rose stopped Ruby's gushing with a quick question. "So, it's true that Beacon students are put into teams almost immediately."

Ruby nodded. "I'm the team leader, though Weiss thought she should be for awhile." She said, her melancholy quickly returning.

"I take it that Weiss is the person in white who was angry earlier." Rose stated simply.

Ruby nodded, sighing as her mind returned to whatever problem was going on between the two of them.

"What's got her so angry?"

"I just... I don't know." Ruby admitted downcast. "I mean, this morning we were fine. Things were fine. Then around lunchtime she just clammed up, giving all of us the cold shoulder and refusing to talk except when it had to do with our studies. And a few minutes ago, I mentioned something and she just turned around and left me behind. I was trying to find out what went wrong when you suggested I let her go. I feel really bad. I'm such a bad leader."

Rose put a hand on Ruby's shoulder. "Hey." She said softly. "There are far worse leaders than you, and you did everything right as you knew of it." She thought back to what she remembered of the other girl's appearance, and realized something. "Would I be right in assuming that Weiss is Weiss Schnee, Heiress to the Schnee Dust Company?"

Ruby nodded, and Rose nodded in return as the facts fell into place. The SDC was a very powerful company, perhaps capable of practically controlling the entire Kingdom of Vale just through legal means and the influence the Dust it sells seems to carry with the rest of the world.

Weiss would be Kalt Schnee's daughter; born rich with money and influence - partly from the influence of the company she'd inherit one day - but she wouldn't have had a happy childhood. From what she'd heard of Kalt's younger days, he was a manipulative, control-freak bastard with a cruel streak as big as her own, and his wife, Lutaris, had died soon after giving birth to her twins, Weiss and Winter. That was all a matter of public record, other than the rumors from Kalt's childhood, but it was needed information for how she would deal with this. It also told her what Weiss's abilities were centered around and what sort of person the girl was to have survived such a situation.

"Weiss's Semblance is Glyphs, right?" Rose said to distract the girl again.

Ruby nodded, but Rose shook her head with a smile. "Actually, Glyphs are how we see the interaction between Auras and Dust. I know from experience, as all my family can use Glyphs in the exact same ways." At Ruby's confusion, she patted Ruby's shoulder. "Don't worry about it. Just ask the girl later."

"Okay." Ruby nodded in assent. "So, what's your Semblance?"

"Don't have one." Rose said simply.

"Oh, so you haven't figured it out yet." Ruby said, nodding in understanding.

"Actually, I said I don't actually  _have_  one. Like, at all." Rose corrected gently. "Can't exactly have a Semblance if I don't have an Aura."

"Wait, how can you not have an Aura? Everyone has Aura, even Jaune! And that's because it comes straight from their souls."

"Well," Rose said speculatively. "I may actually have a soul, as pathetic as it would be if I do, but I don't have an Aura." She held up a hand as Ruby opened her mouth to respond. "Just trust me on this, okay?" They were almost at the cashiers now.

"Are you sure you don't have a Semblance? Maybe it's not exactly obvious, like Pyrhha's control over magnetism?"

Rose froze and put a hand on Ruby's shoulder, stopping the girl mid-sentence. "Wait." She said seriously, most of the emotion drained from her voice. "From what you said, Semblances are basically secret weapons that are different from person to person. Am I right?" Nod. "Then don't just tell whoever's around another person's Semblance! I mean, yours I can forgive, because you're sharing. Yang's was a little iffy, but it was either obvious or not something I could do anything about, and she's your sister. Blake's are apparently a really big and obvious part of how she fights and I'd be able to figure them out quickly enough. But that last girl's Semblance, from what I've seen, is a very closely protected secret! Something that others could possibly use against her! Something  _I_  could use against her! Why would you even tell me?!" She exclaimed.

"Because you seemed like a nice, trust-worthy person." Ruby said flatly. Her face was a stony wall and what appeared to be anger, but not on a scale you might expect from such a kind, energetically happy young girl. This was real and proper rage. And if there was anyone who could identify rage, it was her.

Rose blinked at that, deflating a little at the praise hidden in the relatively soft rebuke. "Well, um," She sighed, letting the rest of her anger fade in favor of appreciation and allowing the girl her delusions as she paid and took their food. "Thank you, for the compliment. It's not often I'm called that." She put on a smile for the cashier as she paid for the food and took it. They walked over to a table in relative silence, the hubub of the shoppers around them keeping away the quiet, until Rose mentioned, "I wouldn't've realized that you could have that much rage in you, Ruby."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" She asked defensively with a pout, her anger very cute this time instead of menacing.

"You're too cute. Naive too." Rose said casually as she sat down. "I'd expect the powerful kind of anger you showed when you complimented me from someone like me. A real and proper monster." She said it without rancor, as if what she was saying was just another turn of phrase. Which for Rose, it was.

And more importantly it was true.

"You're not a monster." Ruby said in such a hilariously serious tone. "You're a nice person."

She tried to hold it in, she really did, but she just couldn't stop the laughter that bubbled out because of what the girl said and how she did it. When she calmed down, she apologized. "I'm sorry Ruby, it's just," She gave a last happy chuckle to get it all out of her system before finishing with a smile. "I really am a monster. But it's nice of you to say such things." She took the plate full of noodles and chicken and sauce and placed it in front of Ruby. "Eat. You're skinny." Was all she said at Ruby's confused look before digging into her own food, a pile of macaroni and cheese mixed with cheese-infused hamburger and just a tad bit of red sauce. The people over there knew her, so they knew what she liked. Ruby's food, on the other hand, was just a guess, though it seemed like she was still pretty good at guessing, judging by Ruby's happy face.

They began and finished their meal in the comfortable silence produced by Rose's command.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, to be honest, I was going to continue this, but as mom said, right there is a scene finisher, and while I had planned to get to the Grimm killing before the end of this chapter (like the scene break in the physical writing was), I got a little stuck with writing new stuff basically on the fly to cover a section that I left off in the writing, and this much is clear enough for now, so here it is! Hopefully, I'll have the next section done by the time we get to next Saturday (or maybe Sunday. Maybe).
> 
> So, in summary, have fun! Please comment and just LET IT RIP! and may God give you the strength to live another day happily!  
> See you next chapter! :)


	3. An Ursa on the Loose! I wonder if that's a problem?

A worried sigh came from the girl in white. Where is she? Where did that stupid dolt go?!

Stop. Breathe in. Hold, breathe out slowly. Now think back. Where did you last know where she was?

They were next to the mall. She'd been looking at a music store for any additional music she might want for the times when she was alone. She may not have much music, nor does she really listen to it much, but it does come in handy for her own personal time. The soothing strains of orchestral music was always a boon to her soul.

But then again, almost nothing from before Beacon has ever gone smoothly whenever Ruby was around. It wasn't that she didn't like the girl, and even if that was so then at least she respected her team's leader, but the girl was such a hyperactive spaz! Zero social skills, awkwardness that got in the way any time the situation did not have to do with combat or her weapon, and a complete inability to control herself!

Stop. Breathe in. Hold, breathe out slowly. This is not the time to rant to yourself about her shortcomings. This is the time to find her.

That's right. She got angry. In fact, the anger Ruby had caused was so great that it had actually blurred the memory of the reason why she was angry. She had then stormed off, muttering silent invectives to herself as she steamed about whatever it had been, before she stopped herself after starting a minute dissertation in her head about why she would find killing a Grimm a very relaxing form of stress relief. Namely that, despite the danger, it would include a physical workout that would work out the physical component of her stress, and the relative cleanliness of the task, even  _if_  she was hit by the Grimm (protected as she and her clothing was by her Aura), appealed to her high-class sensibilities as the Grimm itself would dissolve after death.

After stopping herself, she'd realized that her partner was no longer with her. She was now in unfamiliar territory without backup. She'd nearly had a panic attack, just like what she'd just stopped a little bit ago, before the infamous Schnee composure kicked in and she set her mind to finding the hyperactive girl.

That was several minutes ago, and now she was back at the shopping center from earlier. The only thing keeping her from heading straight back to the airship back to Beacon (as it was getting dark) was the fact that she couldn't find the girl! She wasn't moping where she'd left her, so therefore someone had interfered somehow... at the moment, though, that was immaterial.

If she didn't leave with whoever helped or stopped her, then where would she be?

Assuming, of course, that she was alone, or away from whoever that was, as the alternative wasn't a lead she could readily track down, and that would lead to just waiting for the girl to come home. Not something the heiress was really good at.

Possibilities: Fun, food, and distraction are the most likely, and if those don't pan out, work it out from there. Since she didn't see any indication that being distracted by a shop would cheer the girl up, like it might for a normal teenager, she basically ruled out distraction out of hand.

Her rumbling stomach told her to go for food first. If Ruby had kept up with her current too-sweet diet, then she would be looking for nutrients, which meant food, and the two girls in Team RWBY kept up a similar eating schedule, so if Weiss was hungry, then so was Ruby.

She checked the sweets shops first, but finding neither hide nor hair (nor any other sign she'd been there in the past hour, as signified by the lack of damage. Whether that was actually just a figment of her imagination, on the other hand, was a subject she blatantly ignored.

She grabbed a small cold-cut wrap from a vendor on the way to her next destination. It would keep her fed until she could get a more proper dinner and a part of her claimed that she could now say she'd had her salad for the day. She ate the wrap while searching the weapons shops that happened to be on the way from the sweets to where most of the food was located, and while it was a likely target, she didn't find the girl there either.

So, next stop was general food area, the food court, as the directory sign called it. A few people had seen the girl, and one particular shop, a noodle shop she'd never heard of before, said that she'd been with a long-standing customer that truly enjoyed their food. Apparently, the woman had fed the girl, and the two also seemed to look alike. That did not precisely sit well with the girl for some reason, though whether it was the idea of someone looking like Ruby or someone with a near-identical destructive personality (which was truly shudder-worthy), Weiss wasn't entirely sure. The cashier's directions sent her towards her final, rather distasteful destination. One she was dreading with most of her being.

The mall's arcade area.

Definitely  _not_  familiar territory for the rich girl.

The lights were bright and blaring in the darkened space, the sounds a cacophony of noise that kept her off-balance, and she was looking for a small collection of white and red in black clothing inside a dark, black room. It was starting to give her a headache.

If it weren't for the urgency, she probably would have simply waited outside.

She didn't bother to call out Ruby's name. It would most likely just get lost in the noise. She just kept on looking.

After several minutes, she found the girl, playing a game with an older woman who looked much like her, though Ruby was wearing her combat skirt while the woman was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt with red accents on the shoulders and sleeves, black faux-military pants with red side pockets and no shoes. Surely someone would have noticed her lack of shoes and thrown her out by now. The joy on Ruby's face made her angry, as Weiss now believed that her teammate had abandoned her to have some unsupervised fun. A part of her knew she was being irrational, but the rest of her didn't care as she got angry again and began to stalk over to the two, knocking over a few careless people who got in her way in the process.

She saw something happen on the screen they were facing that caused a large message in a small "explosion" to appear on the screen. She wasn't sure what it said, but it caused Ruby to be really excited for some reason.

She was closing in and was nearly in what was the normal earshot range as the two faced each other and bowed. The older woman said a few words before some careless peon got in her way, which caused them to cry out, which caused the woman to notice her. She smirked for some reason before turning back to Ruby and saying something that was lost to the noise but that she almost heard before the woman put a hand on Ruby's shoulder and shoved. This sent the brunette stumbling in her direction, and as she wasn't expecting it, nor could she see a way to dodge, the two partners were quickly sent to the floor in an undignified heap.

This made the woman laugh at their expense, which irritated Weiss and her pride a whole lot more.

She got back onto her feet as the woman calmed down and smoothed out her white combat skirt of imaginary wrinkles as she tried to keep composed and the woman calmed down. She opened her mouth to speak but Ruby beat her to it.

"Why'd you do that?!" She exclaimed indignantly.

"Because I wanted to." The woman said with a smirk. "Normally I'm not that mean, but your friend was coming and this let me head that problem off at the pass."

"And what's that supposed to mean?!" Ruby shouted angrily.

The woman raised her eyebrows at the question and gestured at Weiss. "She's still angry." She opened her mouth to continue, but then paused. "Actually, I think that was jealousy I saw." She pursed her lips before shrugging, nonchalantly ignoring the outraged face of the girl in the white bolero jacket and the sputteringly red face of the girl in the red hood. "Could be wrong though. I'm not good at almost anything other than killing."

"Then how did you beat me at KFA3?" Ruby asked, her tone half curious and half something else that Weiss couldn't properly identify that was some cousin of outrage. After a half-second of confusion, Weiss saw the name label on the game the two had been playing with the provided joysticks was called "King of Fighters Arena 3". Well, that makes some sense at least.

"Fighting games like that are just another form of killing, that's all." The woman said dismissively. "Now, on to business." She said as she straightened and turned to Weiss. "Don't worry so much about your partner. She can take care of herself and I only distracted her from worrying about you. Now that you two are back together, we should probably leave, as my roommate is probably just as worried sick about me as the two of you were about each other, and it's almost closing time at the store. I think." She shrugged. "Either way, she'll have my hide if I don't show up soon."

Weiss blinked as she processed the rapid-fire information upload that she had just been force-fed. When she was all caught up with life, she was significantly less angry at life than she was earlier, and the rest would dissipate by bedtime. She shook her head to get back into the moment, and then squinted as she noticed a discrepancy. She then looked over at Ruby, then back at the woman. She tried to phrase it in a polite manner. "Why is your face shiny?" Well, wet would've been a better word, but the words were already out, so no changing the damage already done.

Ruby giggled as the woman took on a vaguely offended expression. "Rose decided to wash her face while we were in the bathroom." Ruby explained with a smile. "But no soap. Just water from her hands to her face, just like a cat."

Weiss gave the two of them a look that told them that she found them to be very strange.

"Hey, it is a natural, primal instinct to be clean, okay?!" The woman said defensively, though there was a smile on her face. "Now come on, time's a-wastin'!" She said as she began to usher the two present members of Team RWBY out of the mall's arcade into the blessed silence of the street outside. The Heiress to the Schnee Dust Company relaxed, uttering a soft sigh at being away from the deafening pandemonium. They were following the woman down the street now, who appeared to not be bothered in the slightest by her lack of footwear.

Weiss took this moment to ask a question that was on her mind. "Who are you?" she asked of the woman she was following.

The woman paused and turned to her, an expression of consideration on her face. "Well, these days, everybody calls me Rose, so that's what I call myself. If you're asking what kind of people I am, then I'm not actually a people. I'm just a monster. Like you two are." She started to turn away, to leave the ponytailed girl to her agitated confusion, but then stopped and asked Weiss a question before the girl could react further. "Weiss, you're the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, right?" The girl nodded uncertainly and the woman pressed on. "So it follows that you would know Dust rather well, having had such a personal history with the stuff, right?" The girl nodded again, unsure of where she was going with this. "Well, in your experience, just how explosive would you say raw Dust is?"

Weiss considered the question before she began to answer. True, there were some things that she could not say, as they were things that only the Schnee Dust Company knew, but there was enough in the realm of public knowledge that telling her a few things would be okay. "Well, that would depend on what form it is in: ground to a powder or in crystal form, and then it depends on the way it is used. For example, my weapon, Myrtenaster, uses powdered Dust for various effects." She said as she patted the trusty Multi-Action Dust Rapier at her hip. Right inside the spiked hilt of the weapon was a revolving chamber filled with Dust of various types in powdered form, similar to a revolver's chambers. When one of the chambers was active, then various effects could be drawn from the weapon, such as a trap hidden in the ground, a wave of elemental fury sent out at an enemy, encasing an enemy in ice or keeping them stationary, whether they were on the ground or not, and other effects as well, including giving her additional strength or the ability to manipulate gravity to a minor extent.

"Well, what if I were to break a piece of Dust crystal in my hand,-" The woman began speculatively.

Weiss cut her off. "That's not possible." She said with a voice of authority. "Dust crystal is far too strong for that."

The woman smiled patronizingly at her and patted her shoulder as she said, "And I believe you. But if I were to place a Dust crystal in a place where it could break, then would it explode?"

Weiss shook her head. "Not from the pressure alone. If it were to be shattered by an impact, then maybe, but other than that Dust requires some form of outside energy to activate, even in powder form, though it is far more volatile as a powder." Ruby winced at the reminder of how they first met. She'd tripped over Weiss' luggage their first day to Beacon and had ended up sneezing at some of the powdered Dust she'd had brought for her weapon and studies, causing an explosion. "Even if the outside energy source is as small as a gun's firing pin or as large as a person's entire Aura, it still requires an outside source."

"So, in other words, my hands wouldn't work to set of Dust, but a spark or a fire will." The woman said in a tone that requested confirmation.

Weiss sighed, unconsciously adopting the tone that generally said, 'I can't believe I'm actually explaining myself to an idiot like this.' before she said, "Yes, a fire will likely set off a crystal, though that won't nearly get the sort of reaction that a person's Aura will.

"So, how easy is it to activate powdered Dust?" She asked curiously. "Like, besides fire and Aura, what could cause it to activate?"

"Oh, it could be almost anything." Weiss said casually. "Even something as little as a  _sneeze_  could set it off." Ruby cringed at the further reminder.

"I said I was sorry Weiss." Ruby said plaintively, though Weiss pretended not to notice.

The woman smiled. "You know, that actually reminds me of Dragon." She said fondly. "She's a mechanic, so she tends to end up covered in Dust, especially on days with  _really_  busted vehicles. She's gotten herself frozen solid before because of Ice Dust that would crawl up her nose."

That caused Weiss to blink. While she considered herself a competent Huntress and a perfect model for being the SDC's future figurehead, she would admit, if only to herself, that even she can be thrown for a loop, and this time she wasn't able to react before the woman looked at her wristwatch and make a big show about being late that didn't really penetrate into her mind before the woman simply left. When she was finally capable of reacting, she turned to her cookie-loving partner and said, "Who  _was_  that?"

"Rose Rubellite of the Red Riding Hood." The other girl said with a shrug, appearing about as clueless as she felt.

And so they just stood there in mutual confusion for a few moments.

They were about to leave when  _it_  started. The event that would change their lives forever, and it started with a bang. _  
_

* * *

Rose smiled to herself. That was a rather smooth method of escaping, if she did say so herself. She'd exclaimed about the time while looking at her (nonexistant) watch before giving them an apology and Weiss a thank-you for the information before using the "Super-Speed" to simply disappear into the crowd.

Of course, it's not like she'd actually  _needed_  to do that. It's just that either way, Snow would have her hide stretched across the walls of the apartment, and the other woman was nowhere  _near_  as pretty when she was yelling. Not something that she really wanted the two kids to see.

Suddenly, a Bang cut through the crush of people around her and she froze, though not many people around her did. Probably didn't hear it.

It was loud. An attack. Something powerful against a cut-rate shield. Perhaps a Beowolf. She relaxed a little. Anything small enough to get this far into the city undetected would be easy enough to kill. Her right eye hurt. Just a little, like a pressure rather than a pain.

Another bang, and this time she looked right at the source. It was a non-descript white van. There was a familiar insignia on the side, which was now heavily dented from the inside going out. It was right next to a Dust recharging station, as even Dust was not perfect, nor could it last forever.

The third bang showed sharp claws poking out of the metal, which got the people paying attention that weren't her to scream and begin to run. She smiled. Perhaps she'd finally get something that was worth the pretending she had to do to satisfy Snow that she wouldn't kill anything. After all, people and pets weren't allowed, nor were most animals, including birds, but  _Grimm were!_  She thought to herself with a feral smile. The claws left her field of vision as she began to cut through the crowd to reach the armored vehicle. A little bit later, there was another bang, a  _screaming_  of metal being moved against its will, and finally a roar that made her smile grow wide as she quickened her pace through the crowd as much as she could without actually body-checking the panicked crowd members out of her way. Snow would yell at her if she did that. So would Blake. Quiet, sneaky woman! Should've been born a ninja rather than a cat.

Dragon would just shrug in that apathetic way of hers that cropped up every so often and say that people were dumb and that if they weren't smart enough to get out of the way of a determined Rose then they deserved what minor pain came to them.

When she finally got free of the crowd, she fought back a scowl to let her smile stay around. After all, just because she was too late to be the first one there didn't mean that she couldn't still have fun, it just meant she had to be a little more careful. The fact that it was the two girls from earlier mattered very little to the woman.

She was happy to see what she saw. An Ursa had climbed out of the side of the van, obscuring the insignia while it was at it, and the black bear-like creature roared, its white-masked head raised to the sky as it crowed it's bloodthirsty cries of victory on escape and readiness to eat.

Now, that was a thing that often struck Rose as odd, and those things on that particular list were very few. Unless a Grimm was a truly blooded Grimm, they didn't need to eat. Not at all, not one scrap. And yet they ate people whenever they could. Any person hapless enough to be in range without protection was fair game, and those with protection such as swords and spears and shields and, nowadays, guns, were also fair game. You just had to be more careful around those.

That was when Weiss struck, bolero jacket, skirt, and ponytail flaring up with the wind as it passed by. Seemingly lightning fast, she sped up to it and slashed it across the chest. What surprised the girl was how little damage her strike appeared to do. Then Ruby came up with this huge scythe - oh, her large gun unfolds into a scythe that was a lot bigger than she was. Imagine that - and sliced it down onto the creature's neck like a pickax. A spurt of blood came out of the creature, surprising the girl when it landed on her, and that surprised the woman as well. She'd been wondering how a blooded Grimm would stack up against an average Hunter in this day of Aura and Dust. Great chance to find out.

Unfortunately for her curiosity, she was far too eager and impatient, so as the Ursa batted the girl away, she ran up to it and gave it a solid punch to the jaw. It recovered faster than expected and sent a head-sized paw straight at her like a straight jab and, because of Snow's training rather than the instinct that she wanted to follow, she reached back for a sword and shield attached to her back and brought them to bear and protect her from the strike.

It was in that split second before she was hit that she realized that she'd forgotten any weapon larger than a dagger at home. Thus, she was launched across the street.

It was possible that she'd never live down the idiocy of how she'd looked right then.

The journey through the wall put her off-balance for a moment, and, once the world stopped moving on its own, she saw that the girls were driving the Ursa down the street. She shrugged and smiled. Well, at least there was still some danger to killing Grimm.

She patted herself down, checking for weapons. She knew she had at least one or two on her person, she just didn't remember what. Out of her right pocket came a semi-automatic pistol that Dragon had made for her some time ago. The pistol was loaded with standard Dust-driven steel rounds with no special effects to them. Almost a pity.

What wasn't a pity, beyond the weapon's actual size, was the dagger she had on her person. True, it wasn't a Dust knife - which she'd already made several of and most of which were currently at home - but this one was made of a special metal that she'd created. True, it wasn't the greatest quality, but what she called "Superior Steel" was very powerful, very durable, and could cut through your average Grimm like little else.

The only better things she'd ever made were Crocea, Mors, and Skinner. If you only count among her works made with Superior Steel, anyway.

She ran to the now-empty streets and stood there for a moment to aim. Then, she shot. The round hit, making the beast stumble a little right before Ruby cut into it again. Rose saw where Weiss was now aiming her next strike, and aimed there as well to soften the hide for her strike. The second round was perfectly timed to soften the skin and allow the rapier to slice along that point, spreading ice where the blade slid along and causing a tiny spurt of blood from where her spent round had gone in.

She sent off another round before she ran to catch up to the girls, what with the Ursa leaving the gun's effective range. Sure, she could still hit the thing, but it wouldn't be as accurate as she needed it to be.

That and they were starting to turn onto another street.

OOH! Cop. Poor guy. Looks freaked. I kinda wanna-

Nope! Still got an Ursa! One thing at a time!

Okay, Blake in my head. I'll kill the Ursa first.

Wait, you're not real! You're just what Blake  _would say!_

caught me! Now FOCUS!

Rose turned the corner as she shook off her internal conversation and took aim. She fired once, twice, three times, leaving it off-balance enough to give the two some time to really slash it.

Then it recovered, faster than most Ursa would in fact, and started an overhand swing at Weiss. Just for the fun of it, Rose aimed at the Ursa's knee and shot. It hit, successfully knocking it off-balance enough to send the paw crashing into the ground rather than into Weiss, which allowed her to slash 3 times at the masked face, leaving fire all over it. Rose smiled at the effective tactic, then became more serious when it actively tried to slash at Ruby. She aimed at the other knee to throw it off balance like before. She pulled the trigger.

The gun clicked.

Shit.

Ruby was sent flying across the street to crash into a car, flattening it somewhat, and while Weiss was distracted by Ruby's pain, the uninjured girl got launched into a nearby wall, sending cracks flying through it. As she ran towards the Ursa, now more than a little mad, she took a more accurate look at it.

The bear-like creature's size told her that it was a lesser, younger creature, and the number and size of the bone spikes coming from it's back (only through the spine in this case) told her that others would classify it as an Ursa Minor, though they'd be rather surprised at how easily it had survived 2 Hunters-in-training from Beacon Academy, which had a search through a Grimm-infested forest as initiation. They'd probably killed several such creatures already. However, other than the blood, it definitely seemed more durable than the average Ursa that size should be and it recovered a lot faster, which meant it was probably a bit older than it looked.

She stopped thinking when she was close enough to slam a fist into its gut, then rake her knife across its face, causing it to stumble back as a line of black blood started to trickle from underneath the strange unbleeding mask that Grimm created naturally. A flash of white crossed in front of her, which resolved into Weiss after she gave the creature a Dust-powered slash that spread ice along its body, temporarily gluing it to the ground.

Rose jumped back, allowing Ruby to come in with a twirling whirlwind slice, hitting the Ursa once, twice, three times before she was past it. The girl slammed her blade into the ground as the creature roared in pain, allowing her to stop her momentum and have a more stable spot from which to fire her very powerful sniper rifle, which was still usable in the weapon's melee form, not something you really see everyday among those with such variable weapons.

The ice cracked as Weiss sped towards it once again with the help of a white glyph that looked like the snowflake on the back of her jacket, which happened to be the symbol for the Schnee Dust Company (probably the family crest), and the creature broke free just in time to avoid the heiress' hit, putting the girl off-balance and allowing the Ursa's sideswipe to send the girl flying into a nearby alleyway, seemingly unaffected by Ruby's powerful sniper rounds beyond small puffs of Grimm blood.

Rose charged in, intent on distracting the creature from Ruby, and slammed it with a hit to the torso as it stood up, then dodged the follow-up swipe to slam a fist into a bone spike jutting from its left knee. That got it angry enough to hit her, sending her flying into another wall across the street.

Disoriented and buried as she now was, she couldn't see how Ruby faired against it. She could, however, hear the sound of Ruby's weapon, Crescent Rose, went off a few times and the Ursa roared as well. Then things went relatively silent and she unburied herself as fast as possible to charge at the alleyway that she assumed the three were now in, given that that's where Weiss had flown to.

Why was she running after the girls? Well, most of her was really just running after the Ursa, knowing it'd be a greater challenge cornered as it was. But a part of her was running after Ruby. She needed the girl safe.

She could care less about people. People were many. People were cockroaches. They survived. And while Vale was home now, the way Haven was before, there were a lot more people, a lot more protectors, less need of her active intervention because of the walls which kept out Grimm. They could take care of themselves.

Ruby, however, was innocent. She reminded her of a few people, friends she'd failed to protect, and she had an innocence to her that made her a Paragon rather than a Villain. She still had much to learn, but that sort of naivety was incredibly rare and a precious thing to be protected.

But when she reached the mouth of the alleyway, she almost wished she hadn't.

For just a split second, she saw the Ursa pinning Weiss to the wall, while Ruby struggled back to consciousness from where she lay a short distance from the Ursa and below a crack in the wall, probably from when she hit it.

After that split second, she was pulled back into a memory, and she saw Snow White, pinned to a tree by a Greater Beowolf, left claw through her gut and right paw raised to slash. To kill. Blake was crumpled against another tree nearby, concussed and helpless to stop it. If she'd had time to think, she would've known that it was only a memory and shaken it off to help Weiss, but she didn't have time. No time to think, but time enough to react.

And so, she lost it, giving up professionalism for blinding rage and she screamed a battle cry and rushed the 'Beowolf' to eviscerate it. She'd almost failed Snow once. She wouldn't do so again.

With a headlong rush, she slammed into the Grimm, knocking it to the ground. Then she began to slice it to pieces with the dagger in her hand, going first to cut every muscle in the central bundle, thus basically immobilizing the damn thing so that she could more easily, and more safely, cut off its head. When it tried to snap at her, bite her hand off, she snapped a punch to the open jaw, which immediately shut with a satisfying clack, and then held it closed as she sliced the beast open, and a wave of black Grimm blood washed over her, ruining her clothing. Not that she cared or even noticed.

When the beast had stilled against the alley wall, she calmed slightly and turned to 'Snow'. By now, her altered perception caused by the forced reliving of such a powerful and painful piece of her past was starting to break apart, to crack and fade, which meant that she started to come back to the reality of the present, allowing her to remember that she was currently in a city rather than a forest, that it had been an Ursa rather than a Beowolf. That Dust was a powerful force that existed and could do many things.

But 'Snow' was still Snow, rather than Weiss, which meant that there was no choice for Rose but to heal her as best she could. Weiss, she could not have cared less about, but Snow was what passed for family with her. One of the few remaining pieces that she'd ever cared about from her past.

She tore off the girl's ruined jacket and cut a quick square out of the ruined section of the girl's combat skirt so that she could get to the injury and she paled.

The Grimm's claw had pierced straight through the top and whatever protection the girl's Aura had provided. In fact, it was probable that the damage had been lessened by the girl's Aura, if only slightly.

However, her examination of the wound and her reaction took almost no time and with lightning speed, she grabbed the few small Dust crystals she always kept on her person after seeing their use before screaming at the image of Snow overlaid on where Weiss lay, "Oh, you are  _not_  going to  **fucking Die on me! Not now, not EVER!** " And with that, she quickly turned the crystals into powder just from the sheer strength of her grip and put the powder on the wounds before she began to sew up the wounds that the Dust was already healing using her super-speed and the needle and thread that she also always kept on her person, hidden in a near-invisible belt she'd made back in the old days. Black today. It would look quite nice against the pale backdrop of the girl's stomach, though the blood would have to be cleaned away first. _  
_

When she'd finished setting the stitches, she had finally worked through the last of the memory. Almost. She had one last second of perfect-clarity thought, which she used to see exactly what had happened. She was glad that Snow wasn't in danger, if she ever was today, that Weiss would probably pull through, that Ruby was starting to stand back up.

And that, if the past was any judge, then in a second or two, she would lose all conscious thought and processing power to panic and violent instinct until someone sang her down. The panic attack would be due to the similarity between what had just happened and what had happened all that time ago in the forest, and she rarely did things small.

So, she leapt as far from the two as she could, feeling her back slam into a wall as she curled up and held her knees to her chest as she shut down. Her panic became her entire world until she registered movement, and then a set of strong arms holding her securely in place before she registered the singing.

Flaws. By Bastille. Good choice.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she calmed down and returned to reality as the faces of two, soon to be four, worried faces appeared in her vision with a fifth one she knew to be directly behind her.

But from the way she was held so tightly, Snow was probably going to be angry with her. Someone was probably dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am really happy! Almost immediately after I posted the second chapter, I got 2 more follows! :D
> 
> Hope you liked this chapter, the next one will be interesting! And somewhat painful for a few characters.
> 
> Also, I fixed a little problem in the AO3 version. So, yeah, that's a good thing.


	4. Well, that went well.

Snow slowed the Dust-powered motorcycle Rose had insisted they build together for her as she neared where the whole mess with the Ursa had begun just a short while ago; the busted open armored van. She paused just long enough to see the symbol for Ice (not the Schnee Dust Company's elaborate snowflake) on the back of the truck and then sped back up, the urgency to find Rose and keep her safe still fresh in her mind. She wasn't as careful as she would be looking for someone else, but that's partly because with their bond the four of them could always point out exactly where the other 3 were, though it became less accurate beyond general direction the further they were from each other.

But even without that, all she would have needed to do was to follow the carnage. It almost reminded her of the old times.

The bike under her complained with an abnormal growl. "Hey, if she wasn't in trouble I'd have had no trouble babying you." She muttered at the bike without taking her gaze from the road ahead. Oddly enough, the growl went away, almost as if the bike was responding to her words. Snow shook her head at the thought and decided that she really needed to spend a little more time with Blake and Dragon, rather than worrying over Rose, if she were thinking so much like the brunette.

Besides which, if Rose hand't been nearly such a trouble magnet, Snow wouldn't have been pushing the bike to its absolute limits for the last 5 minutes and ignoring every  _suggestion_  of a speed limit or common road courtesy to get to the woman.

She paused in her inner rantings as she slowed down to turn, since she was getting close to where Rose was, and shook her head to clear it of all errant thought. All that mattered right now was reaching Rose. She only noticed the fleeing civilians and the property damage at the periphery of her mind. Enough to dodge if need be, but not enough to care in the slightest.

She heard a startlingly deep bang! resound from somewhere ahead, down a street in the direction Snow was in. She slowed down further as she came to that turn and her heart nearly froze at what she saw.

It was a fairly large Ursa. But if just an Ursa was enough to give her a heart attack, then she was too damn long outta the game. Unless it was the additional shock factor of seeing three people bouncing around like bouncy balls as they attempted to kill the bear-thing, one she knew by heart and the other two simply familiar as Rose was sent flying once again. She instinctively reached for the pistol on her thigh, cursing when her hand only hit leather-covered flesh. As Rose rushed back in to attack, Snow watched the three fight. It was smooth, flowing gracefully like a river that she'd found once upon a time as the Hunters traded off attacks with each other expertly, as if they'd been working together, fighting together, maybe living together, for years, something that Snow knew was impossible, unless there was a rather big something that Rose wasn't telling her. Like some sort of cloning or Life Model Decoy experiment that she'd somehow participated in. Extremely unlikely though.

After all, she felt Rose's warm body warming hers as she fell asleep at night, almost every night. Though, that set of memories combined with watching the battle's flow and Rose's ferocious figure gave her a pang of longing for the bad old days.

The days when she and her family would hunt Grimm as they lived in those highly-infested territories. When they were constantly surrounded, outmanned, outmatched, and alone with no one and no thing to rely on but what they'd brought, what they could find, and each other. When they would live, staring Death in the face, and grin.

She shook her head, clearing it of memories and suppressing the urge to kill the monster as she noticed the police officer's car as she parked. She wouldn't have to go far after all, so why drag the bike along? Besides, Rose appeared to have the situation in hand. That wall though would have to be replaced.

Besides, she needed to know exactly what had happened, and who better than the cop who'd called it in?

She walked over to the car, mindful of the fight happening not all that far away, and found the cop cowering in his car, windows thankfully already down. The man looked calm, but from the look in his eye, he was just a step away from becoming a gibbering wreck. "What's going on officer?" she asked calmly. When he didn't seem to respond, she tapped his shoulder and he looked at her, a star-struck expression suddenly coming onto his face. She sighed and snapped her fingers in front of his face to get his attention. "Hey, what's going on here?"

He seemed to snap out of his star-struck state and his face started showing a state of half-controlled panic. "The Ursa just blew right outta nowhere! And then those Huntresses showed up and people started running and screaming and I don't know what the Fuck to do, Okay?!" His voice held just as much panic as his face, though his volume didn't really get to shouting until he finished.

"Okay." Snow said calmly, considering what he'd said for a second, seemingly ignoring him completely. "Did it come out of a truck?" She asked him.

He paused in his panic as the memory came to him and training kicked in. "Actually, yeah, yeah it did." he sounded a whole lot calmer now. "And I think my roomie said something about the company he's working for doing something bad. Uh, who was he working for again?" He thought back with a lot of solid concentration while Snow thought about how similar he looked to Detective Burns. "Uh, Ice, Ice Dusk-elech, or something like that."

"Ice Dus-Tech?" Snow asked sharply.

His face brightened from confusion to confirmation. "Yeah, that's it exactly!"

"Hmm." Was all Snow responded with, absently noting that his nametag said P. Hepzibah as she thought and remembered. Ice Dus-Tech was in the news a few weeks ago because of a controversy involving their research into some theoretical applications of using Ice Dust for cold storage of live specimens. There were even rumors going around in the tabloids and coming from her customers that said they may have ignored safety guidlelines imposed upon them by the scientific community and went straight to storing live specimens without much actual planning or fact-checking, even including people in those experiments, Human and Faunus alike. If that image of Ice on the van from earlier meant that the van belonged to Ice Dus-Tech, then it would make sense, especially if they'd moved on to Grimm storage and were somewhat successful at that venture somehow.

To what purpose, Snow couldn't really find. Yet.

She froze when she first felt, then heard the rage coming from her roommate and partner. She abandoned the cop and ran over to the alleyway the scream had come from not far away, where the fight had likely moved to. She was completely unprepared for what she saw and even the comforting weights of a sword on her hip and the snub-nosed machineguns on her thighs could not stop the fear the bloomed.

No matter how many times she saw it, she would never feel comfortable with the sight of Rose going postal on a Grimm, mostly because when she fights like that ... Well, when Rose fights she is always quick and methodical except for times like this, when there is also a truly powerful level of brutality exuding from the woman that made her want to curl up in fear so powerfully that she wanted to right then and there.

She watched the bear-creature fall to the ground with a solid thump with a numb feeling in her heart. She knew it was just a part of who Rose was, but that didn't make her feel any better. Then she got a look at the girl slumping to the ground, barely conscious and bleeding out heavily from her stomach, a shiver ran down her spine. She'd been in such a situation once. It had not been pleasant.

She was still too numb to move, or even think really, so Rose got to the girl first. When Rose screamed "Oh, you are not going to  **fucking Die on me! Not now, not EVER!** ", a cold hand gripped her heart as a half-remembered pain and matching memory rose to the forefront. That was when she'd been stuck to a tree by a Beowolf. Blake had been knocked out by a highwayman before the wolf had surprised them and killed the thief, before Rose had caught back up to them.

She came back to reality as Rose was finishing up the stitches, which were well-done in Snow's opinion. And then Rose jumped back, curling into a ball with an all-too-familiar look on her face. One that scared all three of them, every time.

It was blank of everything but panic and fear, a panic attack. But in this state, Rose would not see anything. She wouldn't comprehend anything at all. She wouldn't remember, wouldn't understand, but she would act.

Snow sighed sadly as she shut her eyes to hold back the tears of seeing Rose in this state and ran her fingers through her hair to calm herself down, pulling apart the tangles in the long ivory tresses caused by the wind while unfettered by a helmet on the ride there. A ping on the emotional bond shared by the family told her that Blake and Dragon were inbound. Not far away and just as worried as she was.

She opened her eyes and saw the Huntresses-in-training beginning to stand and make their way over to see if Rose was alright. Poor girls. Teenagers that couldn't possibly be more than a year or two into their respective schools. Far too young to experience Rose and survive, especially with Rose like this. The huddled woman was now shivering violently. Someone would lose a limb if this wasn't handled delicately.

"Don't touch her." She said, her authoritative "Authority Voice" stopping them cold, the thought threatening a snort from her when she realized that she'd used one of Rose's more ridiculous names for things in personal thinking. She didn't need that while trying to give them orders to follow. When she was sure she had their undivided attention, she explained. "She's having a panic attack. If she was more or less normal, then I wouldn't interfere with this, but in this state, she'd likely tear your head off or beat you to death with your own arm. So, back off and let the professional 'monster-wrangler' bring the woman back to the surface." She advised the girls. She did have to put a little effort into not using her fingers for air-quotes around "monster-wrangler', but they complied.

Snow then crouched in front of the huddled woman, the handkerchief eyepatch threatening to fall off and her entire body showing the fear the woman so despised. Show felt her face run through the gamut of emotions that filled her in that moment; fear, sadness, kindness, apprehension, love, and regret with some pain mixed in for good measure. She sighed, letting her head droop and her face relax. "I'm gonna feel this one in the morning." She muttered to herself. Then she straightened and tapped Rose lightly on the shoulder.

Technically, her position wouldn't really mean a thing, as either way she'd be on the ground in a flash. But, in her mind, she figured that she'd at least be a little prepared and thus less likely to die.

Before she could even do so much as blink she was flying across the actually very wide alley (might as well be a whole 'nother street) and aching acll across her ribcage as she slammed into the opposite wall.

Okay, so she wasn't on the ground yet. At least she was right in that Rose was the one to hit her.

Completely on instinct alone, she used an ability she'd recently found she had which complemented her still-unfamiliar speed with stability and allowed her to meet the charging berserker as well as possible, given their power levels and current states.

Meaning, she launched from the wall only to get slammed back into the wall with a gut punch, but that short while gave her the time to deflect the oncoming right jab into the brick wall behind her and duck, which allowed her to gather her strength until she could launch the two of them, Rose first, into the wall on the opposite side of the alleyway, disorienting Rose in her non-conscious state just enough to let her spin Rose around and slam the pretty face into the wall a few times before grabbing both arms, crossing them so that they could be held by one arm behind the brunette's back and then enfold her into a highly constrictive hug, accomplished right before the woman in a berzerker state noticed this and started struggling like a wild animal.

Through all of this, Snow had avoided looking Rose in the face because that mindlessness that always appeared, it broke her heart to see it. She looked at the brunette, her sadness at what the elegant creature beside her was currently reduced to covering her face without her permission, completely oblivious of the two members of audience she'd gained just as Rose was completely oblivious of the rest of the world beyond animalistic urges and response.

Then she snuggled in closer to set her head on Rose's shoulder and began to hum. Then she began to sing.

" _When all of your flaws,_

_And all of my flaws_

_Are laid out one by one._

_A wonderful part of the mess that we made_

_We pick ourselves undone._ "

She closed her eyes, letting the sent of pure, unadultered Rose fill her nose and mouth, and thus her entire world as she focused on bringing the 'monster' she adored back to reality.

" _All of your flaws_

_And all of my flaws_

_They lie there hand in hand._

_Ones we've inherited, ones that we've learned_

_They pass from man to man._ "

Then came the chorus, and to her mild surprise, that's when Blake and Dragon showed up, singing along and using various items to add in the melody and the percussion.

" _There's a hole, in my soul,_

_I can't fill it, I can't fill it!_

_There's a hole, in my soul,_

_Can you fill it, can you fill it?_ "

The hauntingly beautiful song echoed strangely off the alley walls, adding an ethereal quality to the singing that truly made it beautiful.

" _You, have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve._

_And I, have always buried them deep beneath the ground._

_Dig them up, let's finish what we started._

_Dig them up, so nothing's left unturned._

_All of your flaws_

_And all of my flaws_

_When they have been exhumed,_

_We'll see that we need them to be who we are,_

_Without them we'd be doomed!_

_There's a hole, in my soul,_

_I can't fill it, I can't fill it!_

_There's a hole, in my soul,_

_Can you fill it, can you fill it?_ "

There was a slight pause in the singing as Dragon sang out the melody by herself before they continued as a group.

" _You, have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve._

_And I, have always buried them deep beneath the ground._

_Dig them up, let's finish what we started._

_Dig them up, so nothing's left unturned._ "

Then there was a longer pause as they all sang the melody.

" _When all of your flaws, and all of my flaws are counted._

 _When all of your flaws, and all of my flaws are counted._ "

Another slight pause, and then more singing to finish the song.

" ** _You, have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve._**

**_And I, have always buried them deep beneath the ground._ **

**_Dig them up, let's finish what we started._ **

**_Dig them up, so nothing's left unturned._ **

**_Ohhh. Ohhh!_ **

_All of your flaws,_

_And all of my flaws_

_Are laid out one by one._

_Look what a wonderful mess that we made_

_We pick ourselves undone._ "

Silence reigned as the song came to a close and the world retracted from the entire music-filled alleyway to just Snow and her beloved little monster. Snow took a deep breath to keep herself calm as she nuzzled Rose once more, an animalistic gesture that the woman always recognized, before she dared to open her eyes, not wanting to see the heartbreaking emptiness, even if the red-frosted brunette was still and had melted into the embrace after the short moment of struggling, and thus likely back to the realm of reality.

Rose was calm, a serene face with an ethereal beauty still flecked with Grimm blood that simply enhanced her beauty in that moment. She thought she'd lost all breath, but she was proven wrong when the woman she still held close opened her intelligent silver eye, and that simply took it away all over again.

Of course, the seclusion didn't last long and, as always, it was their raven-haired Faunus woman who had to be the voice of reason.

"Not that I don't mind, but you do realize that we had an audience for our little concert, right?" She asked in her normal near-deadpan voice, a hint of a smile showing through where Snow couldn't see it.

Snow sighed as she relaxed her hug. Well, the illusion had been nice while it lasted. "Yeah, I know. Didn't hear you roll up though." Which was surprising, given just how loud the darn thing was.

"Had a feeling is all." Dragon said simply, Snow seeing her shrug in her mind. "Cut the power on the bike back a block." Oh, that makes sense.

"Okay, just who are you people?!" An unfamiliar voice shouted, frustration lining her feminine qualities that somehow spoke to Snow's early training to be prim and proper, reminding her that they existed after such a long time living with the completely natural Rose.

She raised her head to look at the source of the voice and blinked, struck by just how similar the girl was to the image that always stared at her from the mirrors she looked at. Wow. No wonder Rose flipped out.

The Ice-Blue eyes staring intently at her widened in anger. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

Snow slapped the hand that had been on Rose's arms up to her mouth as her eyes widened in surprise. "Did I just say that out loud?" She asked quietly, voice muffled by her hand.

Rose nodded and Snow could just imagine the smiling roll of silver eyes as Dragon spoke up. "Yeah, pretty much." She said as she put a heavy hand on Snow's shoulder. "But don't worry, we all know you meant it in a nice way."

The girl was now nearly eye-to-eye with Snow, other than the height difference, that is, even including the rather impressive height boost given by the shorter girl's tall heels and the lack of boost afforded by Snow's more sensible Converse sneakers. "And what possible nice way is that?!" The white girl demanded in a rather snobbish way. Definitely needs to loosen up.

"Weiss." The brunette next to the girl chided gently, which made Snow take another double-take at the way the other girl looked before she refocused herself and answered.

"Well, it's just that," She began a little nervously before she just gave up and gave it to her straight. "Well, you look incredibly like me as a teen. As Rose once told me, I was the prettiest thing in the world." Snow smiled with sad remembrance as she looked down at the ground as what had happened since then came up to remind her once again. Dragon squeezed her shoulder supportively as she finished with "but that was several years and too many friends ago." She tried to keep the broken sadness out of her voice, but didn't quite manage it.

Rose squirmed inside the one-armed hug she hadn't been freed from yet so that she could give Snow a hug in support. "You know, my opinion hasn't changed, Snow White." She said, adding in the formal Snow White to make the snow-haired person feel even better as they both solidified the hug. For 'an unfeeling monster with no understanding', Rose knew just how to keep a person in good shape, emotionally and otherwise.

"And neither has mine, Red Riding Hood." Snow said softly in return. A soft sound reached Snow's ears and she looked up at it through her eyelashes without moving her head.

"Guys?" Blake asked, still deadpan but with a note of warning in her voice, while Dragon squeezed Snow's shoulder tightlyu once, then let go. They saw it too. Sigh. Pull Rose in for a tighter hug, letting her know too.

"Yeah, I know." She said. She contemplated her life for a moment as she tensed invisibly and the two children in front of her family stayed blissfully ignorant of the danger. She decided that, while painful, dangerous, and vastly annoying pretty much all the time when Rose was there, and worrying when she wasn't, it had been worth it all the way.

Then it finished rising and she let go of Rose to reach for her heavy longsword. When it roared, she lunged at the formerly dead Grimm that had just stood up again, whose ripped-apart stomach was now actively dripping blood and innards as it roared at them, surprising the teens, but not the adults who'd seen, and thus prepared. Before the Ursa had even finished its roar, three separate swords had pierced its brain, one of which was Snow's longsword, one was Blake's thinner fencing foil, and one was Dragon's wider broadsword, while Rose came up from underneath to pierce the still exposed and newly beating heart. After a final moment of defiance where the beast tried to stay standing and strike, the body sagged and the paw fell limply to its side, the mass of bloody black fur now supported only by their weapons. Then Rose pushed it away as they retracted their weapons for cleaning in near unison, which this time was just a quick flick to the side (which caused Blake to turn to her and give her a quick "Hey.", which prompted a shrug and a sheepish smile from Snow) before they pulled handkerchiefs from various places to clean off what was left. Rose's was picked up off the ground and then retied around her head to cover her eye.

"I have had enough!" A young voice shouted, once again reminding them of their audience as Weiss' prissy little face shoved itself next to hers, which was rather impressive, considering how much taller she was than the girl. "I demand to know who you are!"

Snow gave the girl a sad and amused smile that she knew the others also had on their faces as she looked the girl in the eye. "Nothing special. Just a bunch of old, concussed and traumatized batty old Hunters who never really got used to living around people after so long around Grimm. That's all we really are. Anything beyond that you either don't need to know or is too much for your young mind to comprehend." She patted Weiss' shoulder, trying to comfort the obviously terrified girl who was clearly at the end of her rope.

Weiss opened her mouth to speak again, but Rose cut her off. "We're being deadly serious here. You think it's hard to deal with 3 heavy combat classes a week up in your castle at the top of the cliff?" Rose asked pointedly as Snow looked over to see Rose's slightly pensive look. "Well, Mr. Crowly says you two don't actually struggle with them, but the point is that plenty others in Beacon do. For us, those classes would be nothing more than a workout, rather than seeming life-or-death survival, regardless of how hellish it is. And when you start getting sent on missions, the absolute worst you'll likely get is a deep hunting mission where you'll have quality camping gear, plenty of food and drink, and lots of good bandages. What we lived through was worse than just hunting Beowolves and Ursai or the occaisional Death Stalker or Taijitu. We lived in those areas filled with Grimm of all shapes and sizes, wearing scavenged scraps for clothing, bandages, and armor." She paused.

"Using old or sub-par, easily broken weaponry if we didn't forge them ourselves." Dragon chimed in.

"Only having the barest essentials that we could forage in our one or two meals a day if we didn't catch game or give in and eat Grimm meat, if we had any, which almost always tasted terrible." Blake added in her wonderful monotone. "Especially Hydra." She quietly finished with a shudder.

"Though, that roast Nevermore we had that one time was pretty good." Rose added as an aside.

"Actually, we smoked it, not roasted." Blake corrected gently. "And it still tasted terrible. You just have weird taste buds."

Ignoring Rose's "Hey, I am not weird." and Blake's "Yes, you are.", Snow finished their list of how bad things were during the good old times compared to what the two students in front of them had to deal with, trying to get her inconscient family members back on track. "And for creature comforts, we usually had a blanket or pelt or two per person for bedrolls and we almost never got a shower or bath that didn't include a hot spring or a waterfall."

"And those waterfalls were always damn cold." Dragon added with a shiver Snow felt from three feet away. Rose tried to sneak away, and while Snow let her at first, she yanked the brunette back when she saw where the handkerchiefed woman was focused on. "No Rose, you promised me good takeout tonight." She said with as stern a face and voice as possible for her current gentleness.

Said woman turned her face to show her sparkling left eye with her face in the most adorable and wall-breakingly powerful pout Snow had seen in some time since she'd last seen a pitiful cat and dog that she'd really wanted to bring home, but was afraid they'd die too quickly from lack of care and food. And maybe Rose.

Snow's resolve started to crumble, and then even more when Rose said in this absolutely sad voice, "But, it's right there. It's been too long since I had Ursa. Pleeeease?" And even more when the lower lip on Rose's face slipped out and her face began to wobble as if it was about to cry. She stiffened her spine as she reminded herself of a few things about the woman in front of her and did her best to glare, rather than smile or give in, as she said, "No." As firmly as possible.

Dragon put a hand on Rose's shoulder that Snow could've sworn was gauntleted for a second before she only saw the metal-plated leather that the woman actually wore. Both women turned to the blacksmith to see what wisdom she could bestow. The blonde smiled. "Don't worry Rose. I'm sure you'll get some Grimm meat soon. Just not tonight." As if to punctuate this point, she then stalked over to the corpse and struck a flaming fist deep into the mass of black fur and set it alight. It did resist for a few seconds more than most dry things would resist, even given the extreme temperatures of that fire, but it did light like kindling, leaving the Grimm no further chance to revive.

That was a lesson they'd learned the hard way.

"I've never seen a Grimm leave a corpse before. Why didn't the body simply dissolve?" Ruby asked, morbidly curious as they stood there in the heat of the dead and flaming Ursa. "That's what Grimm do when they die, which is why scientists have such trouble learning about them."

"Well, that's because you were never in Vermilion." Rose said quietly.

"It was in Quarry Town that I saw my first." Snow added in an equally quiet tone. It had been a nice town before the Grimm had attacked, a short week after the two of them had entered.

"The Wilds to the north of El Barron's Keep." Blake said, a sadness to her tone that wasn't as easily identified.

"Garreth's Keep for me." Dragon added.

"As for why?" Snow sighed as memories assaulted her. Memories of friends asking that question and dying for the answer at the hands of the Grimm they'd 'killed' just moments before. "It was Blooded. They tend to live longer after that."

"The Bloodless ones that you're used to are just fakers." Rose added acidly. "No fun at all. They die when a sickly tree branch hits them."

"You know they take a bit more effort than that." Snow chided. "Usually, just an actual blade and a few lucky or strong strokes, but I can agree that they are sometimes no fun. Like that time in Patch."

"You were on Patch?" Ruby asked curiously.

Snow nodded. "It was well before you were born, but yes. A young man by the name of Oz helped out, as did a girl named Summer and another trio named Tai, Raven, and Corn, if I remember right."

"His name isn't Cornelius, he just looks like one." Rose corrected with an aggrieved tone. "Now, if you won't let me eat the Ursa, then let's get going." She said, slipping out of Snow's grip and heading over to the mouth of the alley. "Besides, the girls need their rest as they have school tomorrow. From what I've heard, Beacon isn't going to simply hand them good grades for showing up. Which, I approve of." Rose added as a simple declaration of approval.

"She's right." Dragon said, a shudder going through her after saying that. "You know, I don't think I'll ever get used to saying that."

"I already did a long time ago." Snow said simply as she moved to follow her roommate. She declined to mention the shiver that still runs through her spine, to this day, whenever she says it.

"I don't know what's scarier: my statement or yours." Dragon said as she followed along.

"Ditto." Was all Blake said.

Then they mounted their rides, two to a bike (Snow and Rose, Blake and Dragon) and rode off into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, I did not come up with the song. That honor belongs to Bastille, and this particular one was called "Flaws". Amazing song, even better with the music (which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E36WU9Wzf4 ), and I think that it describes the White Rose pairing pretty effectively.


	5. The importance of boxes and Pizza!

Well, in truth, the four 'old Huntresses' didn't actually ride off into the night. The second they all put on their helmets (which had mini-scrolls installed so they could talk to each other), Snow asked Rose a pointed question about footwear. Specifically, why she was barefoot when she had  _specifically_ sent the brunette off to buy a pair. That was then explained that Rose had stored her purchases in an alleyway a short ways away.

Specifically, a block from the mall at The Poker Hall, a technically illegal (by way of being unregistered) gambling establishment that all four of them happened to like a lot (though for different reasons, and none of them would really admit to it except for Rose).

The four of them slowed to a stop and Dragon shook her head, getting her free hair away from her face before shooting an apologetic look at Blake, who only shrugged and smiled in response, saying she didn't really mind. They dismounted as Rose and Snow did the same and the four headed for the entrance of The Poker Hall. They stopped right next to it and Rose turned to the wall. Then she pulled out a set of connected fake bricks and showed them what was inside. A good pair of buckled black combat boots and a pair of small boxes. In fact...

"Is that a ring box, Rose?" Dragon asked.

Rose smiled. "Yep. Found them at a pawn shop."

"You went to a pawn shop?" Snow asked, incredulously deadpan.

"Yep."

"And you bought  _boxes_?"

"Nope, but I'm glad I did buy them." Rose said simply as Dragon twitched.

"...What?" Snow was utterly confused by Rose's statement. The girl always did like to confuse the heck out of them.

"You'll see." Rose said with a mischievous smile. She put down the obviously high-quality combat shoes and kneeled with boxes in hand. Her smile dimmed, though it never faded, and she spoke somberly. "Now, I know that this is kinda cheap of me, and this could never replace the memories of forging things by your own hand, but until we can get things that  _can_ be of that caliber, I hope that these will be good placeholders." First, she slid open the longer box, revealing a long, thin dagger with a few runes for decoration, some of which seemed hastily done and definitely familiar. _  
_

Dragon gasped as she saw where she thought this was going. Rose was giving Snow temporary replacements of why they'd had before they'd woken up in remnant. This particular knife was a close approximation of the first quality knife Snow had ever forged by herself. It had been done while everybody else was sleeping and as a work of art, not a weapon (even if it _had_  been useful as such). Still, it was a truly amazing thing she'd done, and Rose handed over the replacement to Snow with reverence.

"Rose, you didn't ha-" Snow began to protest, but Rose cut her off.

"Oh, but I did." Then she waved at the knife in Snow's hand dismissively. "Besides, the dagger is unimportant. This, however..." She paused as she pulled up the ring box and opened it as if she was going to propose. It was a shining gold band with 2 sapphires embedded in the top. There was a third gem setting in the middle, but it was empty, and the ring itself was pitted and marred, but it was beautiful, and it was like the one Rose had found for Snow some years before that had been stolen by a magpie after a particularly bad fight with some Beowolves. They'd never been able to track it down, but Rose had remembered. Delicately and still kneeling, Rose threaded the ring onto Snow's left hand. Before standing, she held Snow's hand tightly, looking her in the eye as she rose, and stated, "Snow, one day I'm going to take away this ring and replace it with a better one, hand-forged and as beautiful as you are, ready for anything life can bring to the challenge table. Until then, this ring will stand as my physical promise to keep you safe and happy." Rose hugged the woman close. "I love you Snow White, and nothing will ever change that. You understand me girl?"

After a moment of stunned silence, Snow hugged the brunette closer as her eyes dropped closed. "Yes, yes I do. And I will gladly accept you, if you'll have me."

Rose snorted. "That's my line." She said irelessly and nuzzled in closer.

After a moment, they came apart. "Not to be a complete spoilsport, but we still need dinner." Dragon mentioned casually now that the moment was over.

"Nope." Rose said brightly. "I ordered on the way here. Pizza for the four of us."

"But you didn't ask us." Snow pointed out.

Rose gave her a smiling look. "We haven't had pizza in a while, we've pretty much exhausted all other takeout options for the next month or two,  _other_  than pizza, and Blake and Dragon, who aren't going to simply abandon us after such a scare, haven't had a pizza in a while as well. Additionally, I'm the only one who actually changes toppings between pizzas, so 3 medium pepperoni, onion, and sausage pizzas, 2 for them to share, and a Large Meat Lover's with onion and their special ranch sauce for the 4 of us to share."

Snow blinked as she ran it through her head and came to the same conclusion as Dragon. "That's really well-through out." Dragon nodded her agreement.

Rose smiled. "Yep. Of course, that sort of thinking makes me wonder why Blake and Dragon haven't started making out yet."

"W-what?!" Dragon sputtered out, her face suddenly burning. It was true that they'd never actually kissed, romantically speaking, other than those two times (once was her getting antivenom into Blake's system and completely business, while the other was just to help hide in plain sight while trailing a guy who'd tried to kill Snow, which, also, just business. No romantic feelings whatsoever from that). She absolutely refused to make eye contact with Blake as she sputtered out "I-But, we- that's not-"

Rose's laughter cut off her protests, confused the blonde enough that she was more focused on Rose than spouting unintelligible words. "Oh, don't worry guys. I was only joking." For some reason, that one sentence disappointed her and filled her with more dread than most things Rose did. Partly from simply existing, but mostly from the feeling that there was another shoe out there, waiting to drop onto their heads and stomp. "I knew you guys were already that close from that time we all had Mergin Pox." And there it was, Dragon's thought popped up as her blush got even stronger. The mere mention of that particular disease brought back some memories, some pleasant, others, not so much, that basically told her that she should just give up and do whatever Rose wanted already (though, first step there would be to find out what that actually is).

Dragon was vaguely aware of Blake had been making the same protests, which was confirmed by the raging blush on the faunus' face when she chanced a glance. Though, there was a slight shifty-ness to the raven-haired woman that hadn't been there before.

Rose pulled her attention back to the red-frosted one. "Well, now that we've got that over and done with, let's go home and eat!" She said, jumping into her new combat shoes with that exclamation. "Come on! We gots pizzas tah eats!" And Rose scurried off to the motorcycles. Snow and Dragon looked at each other, shrugged, and ambled after their de facto leader.

Suddenly, Rose stopped, turned around and shouted, "FREEZE!", effectively freezing the three of them in place. "Back away from the door kitty kat!"

Dragon looked back and, to her half-surprise, saw Blake with a guilty expression on her face, hand halfway stretched to grasp the doorknob to The Poker Hall. "But-" Blake began weakly.

"No." Rose said firmly. "We have pizza. We do not need to gamble."

Blake pulled in a breath, centered her stature and gathered her courage, and then spoke boldly, hands at her sides. "One, two quick hands and I can pay you back for the entire month."

"No." Rose said. "Besides, I already told you you didn't need to pay me back. Now back off!"

Loss of stature. Yep, Blake was about to start whining. Honestly, it was amazing what Rose could do to the confident Faunus, and it was even more amazing the lengths said cat would go to to get Rose around to her line of thinking."But-"

Rose's hand whipped out from her pocket to point at the wall as if she was brandishing a sword. "I've got batteries! And I'm not afraid to use em!" Blake hesitated, then began to reach for the doorknob again, despite the fact that Rose was watching. Rose smirked. "Don't say I didn't warn ya!" Then she spun around, pointed at the wall, and gasped before saying "What is that?!"

Naturally, Blake couldn't help herself, and looked. There wasn't anything out of the or- a glowing red dot. Damn. Looks like she finally got around to fixing that thrice-darned laser pointer.

Must.

Resist.

Urge.

To Chase!

Blake, of course, was completely helpless against the taunting little red dot, and chased after it, which quickly led to Rose shoving a small bundle of herbs in her face, mint from what Dragon could smell from here, and Blake relaxed, pupils blown wide and body now languid. As contented purring began to fill the air, Rose and Dragon looked at each other. Rose spoke first, and then Dragon responded, both women using the same "your fault, your mess, you clean it up" monotone that was rather unique to this type of arguments in their experience.

"Your roommate."

"Your mint."

"You chose her."

"You found her first."

"You made her sword."

"You made her a Nevermore coat."

"You helped Minnas."

"You tried to kill me."

"And your point there?" Rose asked reasonably and Dragon scowled. Damn, true. Rose tries to kill everyone. That, and she'd already used it for this month.

"Well what about-"

"No. Your cat, you bring her home."

"But we're going to the same place anyway."

"Or we could just sit here squabbling until she wakes up and can choose for herself." Snow interjected amicably, as if this conversation did nothing but bore her.

Dragon looked over at Rose, who looked at her and shrugged, and so the blonde picked up the goober-eyed faunus and walked over to the bike, wrapping the woman around her to keep her from falling off, and the four of them sped off towards Winter Rose's General Store.

Pointless conversation was still conversation, and arguments were always fun, especially with Rose.

* * *

The drive home was uneventful, the talking about their days over pizza fun and full of laughter at the funnier stories, and once they retired to beds (Rose's bed was a bunk bed with Snow snuggled up next to Rose and Blake and Dragon cuddled like normal on the top bunk, without a thought to Rose's earlier teasing) the 3 who weren't Rose were deep in thought until they fell asleep. Blake was purring deeply in her happy sleep, a commodity that was actually somewhat rare for them, and Rose enjoyed listening to the woman's second set of vocal cords rumbling like an 18-wheeler in the quiet room.

Rose looked down at Snow for a moment before carefully removing herself from the bottom bunk, Snow making a small sad whimper as she left. She placed a Dust-heated person-sized pillow in Snow's arms, feeling a little guilty about it, but only for a moment after seeing Snow's contented expression come back.

Slowly, painfully slowly, Rose went through a series of stretches to check on her muscles. No matter how she may act, she knew that if her body wasn't in prime condition, she might let Snow down, let her die. And as durable as the four of them were, they were no longer children, and they most definitely weren't gods. Her face twitched as various muscles twinged, mostly from the earlier fight with the Ursa, but a few from previous injuries that had yet to heal. But, if it came down to it, she could always just kill whatever stood in her way, just like always. No injury could really put her down for the count, not like the Grimm of early existence or the people who'd given her the title of Monster.

That's what she was, after all. A soulless monster whom had been repurposed by a saint to defend, rather than just destroy. And that's all she'll ever be.

Almost as slowly as the stretches from earlier, she put on some clothing she had laying around, set up to make it easier to fight, along with the combat shoes she'd bought earlier, much as it pained her to do so, both physically and in annoyance. This time, she made sure to grab a sword before she left, and loaded for bear. Well, Ursa, but the worst case scenario was unlikely in the extreme, from what she'd seen of the continent of Vytal. Though, she hadn't seen all that she could, and she wanted to participate in this year's Vytal Festival, especially the tournament. Snow generally approves of those tournaments.

She stood and paused, looking over her loved ones carefully. It had been a while since she'd simply stopped and enjoyed the serenity of such a scene, with Blake and Dragon trying to eat each others' hair in their sleep and Snow looking peacefully asleep.

Rose didn't need sleep. It was useful, but not needed. Besides, she wanted to know something.

She grabbed her personal home-made Scroll from the desk where it was safe and sent a community message to Blake's, Dragon's, and Snow's Scrolls. Snow's chimed from the bedside table, where it was being used as a clock, and left out the now-open window to put action to the words inside the message.

"Hey. Sorry I left in the middle of the night, but I have an errand to run at Beacon Academy; You know, the huge castle on top of the cliffs overlooking Vale? Well, I should be home by, say, 3:30 PM if I don't run into any snags (like the greater Grimm in the surrounding forest or something like that).

~Rose Rubellite of the Red Riding Hood"

A few seconds after Rose had left, another message popped up on their Scrolls.

"Oh, P.S. - Don't open the Shops, wear good combat gear, minus Snow's cape - Preferably, that is - and I kinda wanna invite Mr. Arbiggotti and Mr. Crowly for Dinner tonight. Just a yes or a no.

~Rose Rubellite of the Red Riding Hood"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know this was a shorter-than-usual chapter, but I got lazy this week and didn't write during today's rest day. No school (because I'm too sick to drive for an hour and pay attention and do stuff right) and no work (not scheduled), and yet, no writing done. Sigh. Oh well! Since I'm that much of a slacker, here's the good stuff that I actually have written and I hope you guys like it! :)


	6. Weiss' Team

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be honest with you, this chapter is going to be mostly describing who Team RWBY is and recapping a bit of Season 1. Pretty much all of it, in fact. Though, it is insightful, and it's good to have a reminder for those who know and a crash course for those who don't, while having more plot is definitely nice! :)
> 
> Man! I didn't think that writing this would take a week and a half! (counting in distractions, like Kireteiru's Stranger Things Have Happened (on fanfiction.net; wonderful story!) and a need for mom to run through it once to make sure it was good, had everything needed for those who don't know things and was consistent with Team RWBY behavior, as well as getting winter break and wanting to spend time with my brother). Of course, I wasn't expecting to be able to keep to a weekly schedule at all when I began this story, even including the fact that I'd already written the entire first arc out by hand! Well, Here's Chapter 6! :)
> 
> But before that, I'd like to say sorry for the long wait. As I mentioned, I had to have my mom edit this because 'most everything was completely off the script, though necessary for those who don't know about the RWBY universe, which took longer than expected, and a few of you might become confused by how the perspective changes between first-person from Weiss' point of view to third person, but that's because of how Weiss thinks in this fic. Well, more because of how my brain works, but close enough for now. In real life, this would be like her thinking whilst trying to write a profile for a person, as if she was a part of an intelligence organization. Not that I know much about that that wasn't learned through fiction and databases like the Marvel Wiki and DC Comics wiki, so take it as you will.
> 
> Also, if you're wondering why Weiss' information is the only one that is so complete, that's because it's written from Weiss' perspective. She doesn't really know all that much about the other girls in her team because, well, Blake keeps to herself, Ruby isn't the kind to really gossip (and possibly not talk about herself all that much, though that may just be me projecting myself onto her), and Yang's more of a "Go with the flow" kinda girl. That, and she probably pretty much raised Ruby all by herself, if the way she acts and what we've learned about their home life is any indication.

Weiss stifled a sigh as she turned over again, trying to fall asleep. And yet, no matter what she did, she could not seem to get those mysterious Huntresses out of her mind. She decided to do a memory challenge to try and distract herself. She closed her eyes and remembered.

They were in the third floor room next to the corner on the east side of the Freshman Dorm, which was perfect for viewing the sunrise and the occasional moonrise. The fractured moon that turned above the surface of Remnant was currently in its 'full' state, where none of the fragments that had broken off of the moon (though they stayed in synchronized orbit above the planetoid) sometime in the past were visible. Right in front of her, below a painting of the Forest of Forever Fall was all the Dust she had brought to Beacon in the same white-colored steel matched luggage that her father had had made for her special.

For some odd reason, other than dealing with classes and homework, they still hadn't quite gotten around to unpacking the boxes next to her luggage, and she'd never actually put up a specialized rack for her Dust, though she supposed the Dust was safe enough in the luggage, as they weren't exactly the easiest things to steal or break into, what with the specialized locks that her father had made for them.

Directly above her head was the 'fort' that was Ruby's pretend four-poster bed, complete with an extra sheet used to block out light and include privacy. The sheet in question was held up by the same ropes that held up the bed by the tops of the legs of the beds provided for them by Beacon, though she questioned Ruby's line of thought and sanity where it pertained to the safety of her construction skills.

Then again, the other 'bunk bed', which was just Yang's bed on top of 4 stacks of books which were on top of the legs of Blake's bed was just as suspect. Which, technically speaking, that had been Ruby's idea as well. Still, neither the raven-haired faunus nor herself had yet to be crushed, so she'd reserve judgement... for now.

Between the beds was the bedroom window - which was where she liked to watch the sunrise the few times she actually got up before Ruby and her godforsaken whistle, and more often preferred to watch the moon rise as night fell. -, which was covered by the same curtains as the ones that had been here before their 'remodeling'. She knew this because there was this long diagonal slash straight from bottom left to top right (well, almost, but still completely side to side) that Ruby had accidentally left in it while putting it up whilst the rest of them were making up the room with their stuff (such as the bookshelf underneath the window that Blake had provided and mostly filled). They really should replace those curtains.

The community closet for the room was not the most attractive thing in the world, initially from having to deal with others' clothing as well as her own rather than a massive wardrobe (of mostly matching outfits that mostly looked the same with a few exceptions, though mostly based on shades), but now more from the fact that it was filled with various things which Aura had seeped into and that caused interesting effects on the area. Such as suddenly expanding into a massive Great Hall all on it's own without taking up more space in the building and becoming a dangerous maze that attempted to trap whoever entered, filled with traps of various types.

Sitting above Yang's bed and her tawny Dog pillow was a rather unevenly placed poster to the Achieve Men, whom she assumed was some pop band she'd never heard of, which Weiss was thoroughly convinced she wouldn't like from how pretty the boys on the poster appeared to be.

But she'd also never heard of Red Riding Hood or Snow White in her lessons on the history of great Huntsmen and Huntresses of recent times. She also wondered who the brunette - whom was brunette and frosted the same way Ruby was - actually was and why she was wearing that handkerchief on her face? And who were those other women?

Okay, this isn't working. Try another one.

Ah, what did she know of her team.

Well, there was Yang Xiao Long, Blake Belladonna, Ruby Rose, their team leader, and herself of course, Weiss Schnee. Go in order of team name spelling.

No, father would disapprove. Go in alphabetical order.

Blake Belladonna is a teenaged girl just like the rest of them. She has long, unruly black hair and amber eyes and cat's ears...

Okay, that's not going to work. Let's try who I know about the most and go to the next most until the list of "What Weiss Schnee knows about Her Teammates" is complete and organized according to most information to least information.

Obviously, that list would start with herself.

Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company and the Schnee Legacy (with the Fortune that follows it), has not had the easiest life. When she was a young girl, her father began to mentor her on how to be a proper leader for the company. Trade routes, the way that the company worked, business strategies, stocks, politics and current events. All were memorized and examined alongside her more traditional studies, beginning at age 7 when she was deemed as sharp enough to begin learning the business. She also began to learn all she could about the Dust that her family's company mined and shipped and that  _everyone_  used in one form or another. Batteries? Minute amounts of Yellow Dust with a few other materials added in for consistency and to keep the Dust stable and useful. Fuel for vehicles? Every type of vehicle currently uses red or blue Dust, though years ago they used Dust of all kinds, experimenting as they pleased to see what worked the best. The sugar used in her coffee or the cleaning agent in Shi-nee toothpaste, which her father's company sells?

Well... surprisingly enough, the same odd variant of White Dust is the sugar she grew up with and also the active cleaning agent in the toothpaste.

Soon after discovering the uses of Dust for herself, one of the newer hires among the servants decided to get a little grabby, which was just as well that she didn't like him as she soon discovered he was a Faunus, specifically a member of the radical group known as The White Fang who had targeted her family and the company for years, practically since before she was born, and had even killed relatives of hers that she knew and members of the Board of Directors, even personal friends, often making her father come home furious. She'd scrambled away from the Faunus, barely staying away until she found herself in the kitchen, cornered but suddenly armed with a kitchen knife and a bottle from the spice rack. In desperation, she'd opened up the bottle and threw the entire contents of the bottle into his eyes before she slashed at him, injuring him enough to cause a shout, which attracted the attention of other servants, who held the Faunus in place to keep him away from her until her father had come down to see what was going on, and thus allowing him to deal with the cretin. It was a day that had long cemented in her mind that Faunus were nothing but scum, the monsters they showed themselves to be in the White Fang. A position she was now having to deal with and decide how to revise.

The other important thing about that day is that she learned that day that she wasn't simply a girl in a dress. If pressed, then she was a fighter, and that was when the idea got into her head to become a Huntress. Money? Fame? A life of comfort where she was constantly attended to? That she had. But Power?  _That_  she didn't have yet, and she saw, both through her father's eyes and her own that the Huntsmen and Huntresses held the  _real_  power among those in place today, with the Grimm outside the walls, waiting to kill and eat and rend and tear to their heart's content whatever creature misfortunate enough to cross paths with them, though animals are generally spared, especially when Humans are around. While the militaries of the kingdoms and the androids provided by the Kingdom of Atlas were there to protect the populace where the local police could not, it was the Huntsmen and Huntresses who hunted down Grimm, because they were the only ones actually capable of it.

As a result of that decision, she had begun to learn how to fence at age 8, and had even designed her own outfit as a Huntress, something that would help mark out who she was to friend and foe, and it was what she was wearing during the daytime (not right now though, being that she was in the pajamas her mother had gotten her, one of the final gifts from the kind woman). A white bolero jacket with red lining and the Schnee family crest, a silvery 12-pointed snowflake that looked like daggers were coming out of the points, on the back. That covered her torso to mid-back, but the front was left open to show her white dress (which hugged her torso snugly, but not lewdly, with a special black and lacy undergarment to hide any cleavage that could show. Wouldn't be proper to allow just anyone a free look at her body, now would it?) that bottomed out with a flaring blue combat skirt that reached mid-thigh. Her legs were left bare, but her white boots with their 2-inch platform heels covered up to mid-calf.

She was capable of fighting with either hand, but while she was good with the light foil she'd used to learn in her right, she was deadly with the heavier rapier she counted as hers in her left, which left a hand free to do any gestures needed to summon up her Glyphs. However, she had not simply become good overnight. Oh, no, there were trials that had truly stretched her limits, such as her graduation test, a fight against a giant suit of armor, unnamed by whoever created it (to her knowledge, at least), which had landed a solid punch, sending her rocketing back and that hit would have been enough to seriously injure her if nor for her Aura. Instead, she merely got off with a gash starting above her eye and running across it to her left cheek without injuring the precious orb. That wound had since faded to little more than a scar, a near-invisible white line on her face.

Currently, though, she was not living the life of luxury she had in Atlas with her father. No, she was living in a dorm with 4 other girls, all of whom she had her issues with but would protect with her life. They had all earned that.

She'd also recently learned that she didn't actually know all that much about them. The way she'd learned this was not pleasant, what with Blake accidentally revealing herself a Faunus before Weiss had been forced to rethink her position on Faunus, but right now she was what she knew of them.

It was true that she wasn't the most, sociable of people. A part of that is the self-serving attitude she had been forced to adopt in order to keep up with her father's demands for perfection, and a part of that was the mask that she'd had to adopt in order to survive in "high society", but a part of it also came from not really having any real friends growing up.

Next was Ruby Rose. The leader of Team RWBY - the name given to them by Proffessor Ozpin at the end of initiation was spelled by the beginnings of their names, like it is for many similar teams, and pronounced as "ruby" - is a slim individual with a sturdy build, brown hair with red-frosted tips, a larger bust than Weiss' own, an inch of height over her when she isn't wearing her normal 2-inch-heeled combat boots, and uses a 2-foot gun that extends into a 7-foot-long spiked metal pole holding a 3-foot long blade in the shape of a scythe with a high-powered sniper rifle built into the pole to be operated from the halfway point, the barrel opening just barely poking from the top where the blade is.

The girl's preferred combat uniform was a black combat skirt with red lining, a black combat corset with long sleeves and red laces on the stomach, accented by her black belt which held a few extra rounds for her sniper scythe and an ammo pouch (as well as a set of hooks to hold onto her scythe, Crescent Rose) and the silver buckle was in the shape of her personal symbol, a Rose, as well as a red hooded cape held fast by silver cross buttons (which was actually rather stylish in it's own unique way), and her black thigh-high combat boots covering the bottoms of her full-length black stockings completed the image. Her striking silver eyes were often filled with a powerful curiosity and naivety that constantly reminded Weiss of a little child, as did the way she acted and held fast to cookies as a dietary staple only reinforced this image, not to mention her fascination with weapons and the childish way that she fawned over the Cross-Continental Transmit tower, which, admittedly, was very impressive (though, the one in Vale was nowhere near as good as the first one built, back in Atlas). However, the way she could plan in combat, the way she could use her scythe competently in ways that are absolutely beyond Weiss, especially given how heavy the weapon actually was (Weiss couldn't even lift it properly in either form without using her Aura to enhance her strength), and the way that solid determination filled those same silver eyes when the situation was serious all told her that beneath the childishness, Ruby Rose was a force to reckoned with. The way that she could kill a Grimm without the slightest bit of hesitation had astounded her the first few times she'd seen it, but now it was just another part of her leader that she admired.

Not that she'd ever actually say that to the brunette's face, of course.

The girl's Semblance was her near-impossible speed. With it she could go so fast that she could appear to teleport. She tended to leave behind rose petals behind her in abundance whenever she uses it, which tends to clutter up whatever area she had just vacated until they dissipate. Though, it was a rather odd thing, now that she thought about it, that whenever Ruby killed a Grimm with Crescent Rose, the corpse would dissolve into rose petals, rather than simply fade like normal.

Thinking about those rose petals and Ruby killing Grimm reminded her of the team's first 'official' battle against a powerful Grimm. During initiation, they had been assaulted by an adult Nevermore, a gigantic crow-like creature half the size of the airship that had brought all the first-year students to Beacon and just as capable of flying and using it's feathers as projectiles, which caused Ruby to be caught by her cape and had allowed the scorpion-like Deathstalker that had been chasing Pyrrha to reach Ruby. She had decided then and there to go and save the dense girl by speeding up to her (with the help of a discreet Glyph at her feet) and using some Ice Dust to create a wall of ice between them and the Deathstalker. Then she'd berated the girl for her idiocy, before relenting that, maybe, she had been a little harsh on the younger girl and that she would endeavor to be nicer. That's when Blake reminded them that their goal was to get a relic and get back to the school safely, not to kill everything in their way, and so the group of them had all decided that, discretion being the better part of valor, to run on back to school before they risked serious injury or death. They had been informed at the beginning of initiation that the teachers, while watching, would not intervene in this test, and so it was up to them to survive.

They had run towards the school, and when they were almost there, they came upon a structure that the Nevermore landed on. They couldn't really circle around, as the structure was in the middle of a gorge that was directly between them and the school, and the Deathstalker was still bearing up behind them so they couldn't run or take the time to circle around, so they went straight through, finally taking on the Nevermore on approximately even ground. However, no matter how powerfully they hit it, they couldn't seem to even scratch the damn Grimm, even when Yang jumped out to be snatched up in its beak so that she could ram some active explosive Dust from her shotgun-gauntlets down it's throat. Except that actually did have an effect, which was when Ruby came up with a plan to defeat it. While the Nevermore was dazed and on the ground, Ruby told her to tie the creature down with some ice, connecting it to the ground by its tail feathers (though, how the feathers in question were not simply plucked, Weiss wasn't sure). Then, using Blake's weapon's seemingly indestructible ribbon and a pair of pillars as a slingshot, Weiss had aimed in such a way that Ruby would be able to hook her scythe on the 'bird's neck and sent the girl flying before lining up a line of Glyphs so that the crimsonette could run up the cliff face, using her Semblance and the added power of the scythe's powerful recoil to drag the 'bird' up the cliff, trying to sever the head, before finally managing to do so when the neck caught on a jutting ledge at the edge of the top of the cliff. It was all rather dramatic and awe-inspiring. That was also the moment when Weiss began to truly respect the younger girl.

Then there's Ruby's sister, Yang Xiao Long. She was a little taller than Ruby, with a larger bust that made Weiss fairly jealous (though, not for the back pain the blonde probably had to deal with, if you ignore her Aura's probable healing of it) and her clothing was rather revealing. The garb reminded the rich girl of a certain adventurer, other than the definite feminity of the outfit, with a leather jacket top (that had poofy shoulder-sleeves that stopped before the elbow because of buttoned cuffs which was cut to show off her bellybutton and down, a yellow tube top under that that showed her bust for all to see that had the girl's symbol, a burning heart, in black but partially hidden by the jacket, black cut-finger gloves that were accentuated by the golden bracelets that were her weapon, Ember Celica, when not prepared for battle, a belted leather skirt that held a pouch for holding things and was unevenly cut, which gave it a downward spiral look along the edge and had a gold version of her symbol on the lowest bit in the middle. There was another layer to the skirt, a cotton cloth cut as oddly as the leather but longer, and both had a 'window' in the front to show off her black exercize shorts, and there was gold piping on both the jacket and the leather skirt. The final part of her ensemble, if it could be called such, was a pair of worn leather boots which reached to just below the knee and a pair of yellow stockings, the one on the left pulled up above her knee to where it stopped and with a grey bandana wrapped around her leg at the top of the boot, and the one on the right allowed to simply droop on top of the boot, finishing her rather unkempt look.

For all that the blonde berserker with a fondness for her honey-colored hair (which easily reached mid-back, though it was usually in the wind a little too much to get a proper accounting of how long it actually was when she was actually paying attention) that bordered on obsession (seriously. If anything cuts her hair, even just one strand, she goes on a rampage and utterly destroys whatever it was that did it) wore her heart on her sleeve, she didn't know a whole lot about the girl. She had done her research on the girl, but the most she'd really gotten from the digital sources was how she had a 3.5 grade-point average, mostly bringing home B+'s and A-'s. Well, that and a few minor charges of disturbing the peace that never actually earned her jail time (one particularly noteworthy time was a bar fight that basically demolished the bar, though it only noted her as a suspect rather than an actual charge), aggravated assault, and a few speeding tickets. The reports on the assaults basically said she was protecting her sister, and so they let her off lightly. She had found out that Ruby and Yang had different mothers but the same father, but that was all she'd found digitally.

In personal observation, the girl was a brute, a bruiser that believed the best way to fight was to punch things in the face until it stopped moving, and while she talked like a party girl, she acted like an overbearing mother Ursa, especially protective of Ruby. She was a sound advocate of fun, partying, and a lack of study with a rather brilliant smile, but she did show that she cared when she wasn't acting her age. Either way, the girl had a somewhat plain honesty that she found refreshing at times, wearing her heart on her sleeve rather than hiding it like Weiss did, a way with puns that she had decided to try and emulate as she had learned of the effectiveness of battle banter somewhat early in her training, she just hadn't learned how to use it correctly, and the blonde was highly skilled (obviously, from how she had been accepted into Beacon) and an actually useful member of the team. When angered, her lilac eyes would turn as red as the red on a Grimm's mask. Not quite blood red, as it was far too vibrant for that, and the anger in it had a heat and life to it that the lines of red on Grimm never could, but when turned on you it could be quite chilling.

Physically, she's strong. Stronger than almost anyone she knew, including her father and Ruby. She was well-built, though her muscles didn't stand out in sharp relief like the muscles she'd seen on body builders, and her skin was actually a shade or two paler than Blake, Ruby, or herself, and being of Schnee lineage, she was close enough to snow white skin that it almost made no nevermind.

Finally, she came to Blake Belladonna. The quiet girl was actually the person she knew the least about on the team, even if she could actually say more about her than about Yang. It could be  _because_  Blake was such a mystery that she understood little about while Yang simply _was_. She was compelled to collect all she knew about Blake in one place,  _because_  she was such a mystery. Insight on Yang simply required you to watch her for a day.

Blake was a teenager like the rest of them, a mane of unruly black hair that could billow out like a cloak behind her while running that held an equally black bow on top of her head, just a little bit back, and somehow managed to compliment her amber eyes well, which were accented lightly by a simple application of purple eyeshadow. Not much, just a dab at the corners of her eyes, its minimalistic feel matching the girl's quiet nature.

Her normal daytime garb (unlike the black yukata she was currently wearing, both of which were always neat and tidy) consisted of a black buttoned and coattailed vest that stopped beneath her bust on top of a white tube top which is connected somehow to the white short shorts she wore above her black stockings which faded to purple the closer to the black one-inch-heeled boots you got, other than the slightly holographic silver examples of Blake's symbol at the thigh on both stockings, which happened to be a Belladonna flower like her last name, or so Weiss assumed. She still hadn't discovered the purpose to the zippers on Blake's shorts. The only other noteworthy thing about her appearance were that she wore odd black ribbons around her forearms as if they were a badly wrapped set of mummy wrappings and she had a black sleeve with a silver armband near the shoulder on her left arm.

Her weapon, which Blake had named Gambol Shroud, hadn't seemed like a proper weapon at first. In all honesty, it looked like someone had attached a thin black blade to the top of a USP pistol, and then covered that with a very large, definitely oversized sheathe over it, making it look like a boxy greatblade with a pistol for a hilt, a ribbon trailing from the bottom where the clip goes in like a banner. However, more thought had been put into it than you could readily see at first.

The katana-like blade was collapsible so that it would reverse along the top of the gun like a very small scythe, a Kama to be specific, and could be swung around like a ball and chain, though more deadly, and when pressed, Blake could attach one of the ribbons from her wrists to add range to this form of the gunblade, and she could pull the trigger using the ribbons to spontaneously change the weapon's direction or add additional speed to strikes, making for an impressive attack style and weapon, once you had mastered it. Even the sheathe was made use of, as the large boxy thing had a sharp edge along one side, where the gun was pointed, as if that was the main purpose of the blade, and could be used as an independent blade held by a hand-sized rectangular hole right at the base of the sheath.

The woman was quiet, often preferring to read alone whilst the others went along with their lives, their own worries and troubles. She had a liking for tuna, which was almost odd, especially in the way she preferred the entire fish be present though she would take canned tuna or tuna fish sandwiches easily. She was well-read, and could easily hold her own in a debate against herself, and had a rather focused interest in issues dealing with the Faunus, including both the way history presents them and their abilities, which were well above normal human norm and included a decent package of more powerful senses, perhaps even including a better ability to sense Aura, and the current history and political affairs to do with them (not to mention keeping stock of who uses Faunus in their labor forces and how, such as the rumors of the Schnee Dust Company using undereducated Faunus as less protected, less well-paid workers in the Dust mines who were basically considered to be expendable. Those rumors had caught her attention when they were brought up, but at the time she'd thought such rumors nothing but hateful slander against her ancestral company, her birthright that she would inherit once she was of age). Weiss had wondered the first time she'd seen an article about a Faunus right's protest on the other girl's Scroll that first time Weiss had actually caught her slacking off in class. The raven-haired girl actually studied as ardently as she did, and that was saying something.

Of course, after the events at the docks, she understood exactly why.

Unknown to them, Blake Belladonna, their Blake who had stood by them through thick and thin, had been a cat-faunus the entire time. When it came out, they'd been arguing about whether or not the White Fang deserved any merit more than a rabid dog might, and immediately after offering the possibility, in her own words, that "Maybe we were just tired of being pushed around!", she had had a desperate look on her face before fleeing whilst they were still shell-shocked by the admission.

Afterwards, mostly at Ruby's insistence, they'd searched the city of Vale for any sign of Blake. She'd mentioned the possibility of involving the police in the matter, letting them take care of it, but Ruby took it the wrong way (well, mostly, if Weiss was honest with herself then she'd admit, if only to herself, that she had been considering Blake as a criminal out of hand at the time), and so they didn't go to them. Not that it would've helped, as Weiss later discovered that the laws say that unless a person has been missing at least 24 hours, they cannot be declared as missing, and thus no police action can actually be taken.

They were searching for the girl for a full 12 hours, mostly because she had debated about even going on the search in the first place after they first got up. For the first part, the three of them were walking around, shouting for her (though Weiss wasn't shouting), until Penny, a fighter here for the Vytal festival, though very weird, appeared right behind her with no warning and showed them, in a roundabout way, how Blake was a Faunus, and when Penny overreacted to Blake's missing status by coming up to Ruby and going off on a soliloquy, Yang and her made their escape. An hour later, Yang noted out to her that she wasn't helping as much as she could, that Weiss really didn't care about finding Blake. She'd responded simply. "Of course I do. I'm just afraid of what she'll say when we find her." She'd turned to Yang to make sure she understood as she said, "The innocent never run Yang." before walking off to continue the search.

A few hours later, there was an explosion at the docks, and they arrived to the scene of a wrapped up battle. Police officers were standing around, some like incompetents, some like they knew what they were doing. She marched right up to Blake, half ignoring Ruby's attempt to calm her down with a mention of cute cat ears and then she listened to Blake's attempt to calm her down, quickly giving a rundown on her activities with the White Fang, though she started out with the words, "I want you to know that I am no longer associated with the White Fang."

6 words later and she interrupted her friend simply. "Stop. Do you have any idea of how long we've been searching for you?" Weiss had paused to let her words spoken at the Faunus in front of her (as well as the non-confrontational tone and posture she'd said them in) sink in. " _Twelve_  hours. That means I've had twelve hours to think about this. And in that twelve hours, I've decided..." She let the other girl stew for a second, a technique she'd picked up from her father and a half-competent instructor who'd preferred talk and battles of debate over teaching. "I don't care!"

Blake had been very surprised. "You don't care?"

"You said you're not one of them anymore, right?" Weiss had pointed out rather logically.

"No, I-I haven't been since I was younger-"

Weiss had put up a hand and silenced her. "Ah-bah-bah-bah-bah! I don't want to hear it. All I want to know is that the next time something this big comes up... you'll come to your teammates. And not some..." She had unintentionally looked over Blake's shoulder to look at Sun, the monkey Faunus who'd been there throughout this particular debacle. She started to say something along the lines of "Scruffy-looking degenerate Rogue" or a rapscallion or something along those lines, as her father had taught her to look on for the Faunus, but then she'd caught herself and simply said, "Someone else."

And with that, other than reporting in to Proffessor Ozpin, the entire fiasco was wrapped up.

Later, Blake had shown them her cat ears at Weiss' request, which had been filtered through words that meant things like "Privilege of the elite" and "since I am the last to see them, then I must be shown", though she had included Yang into that second one, and they'd been very thin excuses. Blake had smiled at the heiress and shown them to the team. Right where the bow usually sat were two rather cute cat ears, black with grey insides. Without the bow, she actually looked somewhat bedraggled, rather than the usual serene, seemingly regal normal person they'd become accustomed to. But, in truth, that was little more important than wearing a dress on one day and a combat skirt on another, with an equal amount of change.

So, in summary, she... didn't actually know a whole lot about her team. She knew that they were driven, that they were dependable, if childish, and that they belonged to her, just as she belonged to them. Though, that particular phrasing came more from the woman they'd met earlier that night rather than her own self.

And just who were those women?

"Can't sleep Weiss?"

Her eyes opened with a surprised snap, body turning around to face the intruder, ready for fight or flight assessment, before she fully recognized that it was only Ruby. She sighed. "Yes, Ruby, I'm awake."

"Still thinking about them?" Ruby said simply.

There was no doubt about who "they" were. She nodded. "There's just too much we don't know about them. Who were they? Where did they come from?" She looked Ruby in the face, for some reason trying to ignore the white pajama pants with roses on them and black tank top with a heart-shaped Beowolf caricature face on the bust - the black face mask with red triangles reminiscent of eyes absent at current - to focus on those silver orbs in front of her. "My father had me study famous Huntsmen and Huntresses of recent times as part of my training and there is no mention of any Huntress to have endured such a hard lifestyle as they mentioned, not in recent times. The closest we have to such warriors were roaming ones, but those hardships were only endured way back when Remnant was still in its infancy. Back when Dust was either unknown or treated as some dangerous magic - wild and uncontrollable - and those accounts are little more than rumor and superstition or stories designed to keep the adults entertained and the children obedient." The heiress didn't really want to crush her team leader whom she knew had a noticeably profound love of those kinds of stories, ones where the virtuous Huntsmen and Huntresses go out and slay the evil Grimm and other forces of darkness, but she couldn't keep back the bitterness from the reminder of the thankless tasks of little to no reward which had ruled her childhood at times. She couldn't keep back the sigh those thoughts produced.

"Wanna talk about it?" The girl asked sympathetically.

Weiss shook her head. "No thank you, I'm just tired." She rolled over to try and go to sleep, or at least get the crimsonette to leave her in peace.

No such luck. The younger girl sat there for a moment before asking, "Could you tell me one of those stories?"

She sighed. "No, Ruby."

"Please!" She whisper-yelled.

Weiss closed her eyes and sighed, slowly counting in her head to try and keep a level head. Then she decided to humor the other girl. "Well, there were a few stories that seemed to match the claims those women had. They were all centered on four nameless warriors, and there were many different versions of most of the stories, but many of them called the main characters 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse', based on the fact that they often rode horses - especially into battle - and they left death and destruction wherever they went." She paused to think, unaware that she'd rolled over to look Ruby in the face. "The version of the most popular story that seems to be most accurate accounts that they were well storied warriors, capable of many seemingly impossible feats, including fighting down Nevermores that usually stayed in the skies, dealing with multiple Deathstalkers, King Taijitu, and Greater Ursa at a time or combinations as well as beating down hordes and packs of Beowolves and Ursi like we would, though the numbers seem exaggerated."

"Wow." Ruby said, her face impressed, but taking what she'd said into stride. Weiss remembered having a similar face at first, and while one part of her wanted to remind the girl that the stories collected on these four were nothing more than a distorted collection of rumors and myths and legends, another, larger part of Weiss had gotten caught up in the storytelling and wanted to continue, though there was a thing that was so commonplace to the two of them that weren't in those times that she felt she needed to clarify it to the younger girl.

"Ruby, I don't think that you completely grasp the enormity of what I just said. I know I already said that Dust was believed to be dangerous magic that couldn't be controlled, counted on or used properly, but there's another part to it. Back then, Aura was little more than superstition. They didn't usually believe it existed, and those that did were counted as fools that believed in nonsense. If a Huntsman or Huntress were to be hit by a single swipe from a lesser Beowolf, one of the weakest Grimm in existence, then they were liable to be torn in half." She added, somewhat harshly. "Besides, even with the advantages of Dust and Aura and Semblances, it still takes highly skilled and experienced warriors to kill Grimm, especially in large numbers, even with groups as small as 10, or even 5, or own experience notwithstanding. These four managed to kill, at smallest count, 10 or more Grimm of various types in almost every bigger than normal battle they ever participated in, and these were people without any of our advantages, with only as much strength as a bodybuilder without Aura, at most, with average speed and comparatively pathetic durability. That hit I took from the Ursa earlier? That would have torn one of them clean in half, rather than simply cutting in, and just getting the slightest cut in past thick Grimm hides would have been incredibly difficult."

"Speaking of," Ruby interrupted at the reminder of the hit Weiss had taken earlier that night. "What did the nurse think of your cuts?"

Weiss sighed and unconsciously put a hand over where the wound had been. "She said that they were incredibly deep and surprisingly well-managed and healed for something that I had supposedly gotten less than an hour before. The stitches were professionally sutured, even if they  _were_  installed in a shape, and that there was no real further damage beyond my Aura's capabilities, so it should be healed by morning."

"What kinda shape was it stitched in?" Ruby asked curiously.

Weiss felt her cheeks heating up a little. "A line of snowflakes." She really hoped Ruby didn't see her blush.

"So what was their biggest fight?" Ruby asked excitedly.

"Well, the texts tend to disagree on exactly what was their biggest battle. Some say that the Hood's fight against the Vermillion Rose of the group known as the Hunters of Vermillion was the biggest, and I think that that one is the most believable. Some say that their fight against 5 Greater Nevermores was their biggest or most amazing, though I always found that particular account rather ridiculous."

"How would they have fought the Nevermores?" Ruby asked curiously. "Don't they only swoop down to either attack or land in their nest, for the most part?"

Weiss nodded and shrugged helplessly at the same time. "How would I know? Of course, a few of the battles attributed to them are obviously nothing more than hearsay, myths, or just flat-out lies."

"Did they ever kill a Hydra? Or a Dragon?" Ruby asked, eyes sparkling, subdued excitement almost bringing a smile to the heiress' face except for what she had to say next.

"Ruby, Hydra never existed." Weiss said bitterly. She'd wanted to meet one, when she was younger, even if it'd likely kill her. Her father put paid to those thoughts quick enough, and here she was, repeating those same crushing words. "Neither do Dragons, and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is a fool... or insane."

The absolutely heartbroken look on Ruby's face twisted at Weiss' heart, like as if someone had killed her puppy or something. She sniffled, and said, "Well, I guess I'm a fool then. Or insane." She stood quickly and dusted off her knees before saying in a subdued tone "Goodnight Weiss." before quickly climbing into bed.

Weiss sat there, shocked and confused by her bubbly team leader's abnormally cool dismissal and subsequent leaving, and tried to puzzle out exactly what it was that she'd said to make her react like that for a good half an hour. She only stopped when a breeze ran across her face, blowing some of her hair into her face. She gave an annoyed huff at the breeze for interrupting her musings and glanced at the window, finding it open. Strange, she thought she'd closed it earlier. She left her bed as quietly as possible and went to close the window when a piece of paper smacked into her face. She tore it off and was about to throw it away, dismissing it from her life as quickly as it had appeared, but then it caught the soft moonlight in just the right way to catch her attention and make her pause.

Perhaps it was simply that the room was near silent at that moment, or the way the moonlight shone on the paper, but the picture on the paper instantly struck terror into her heart.

And what was worse is that it wasn't simply some poorly done drawing of some fantasy creature by her leader, it was an aged photograph, a little yellowed but still clearly legible as the nightmare it showed. A young man, though devoid of grey hair he was clearly recognizable as their teacher, Peter Port, partly because of the rather distinctive Blunderbus/Battleaxe combo weapon he held in one hand like a baseball bat. He stood resolute, almost like he likely imagined himself in his impossibly boring anecdotes that he shares in class, facing down a monster that she had dismissed as mere fantasy after her father had broken what few illusions and childish notions involving the Four Horsemen she'd had. True, it was just a small picture, used in a news article for what appeared to be a small town years ago, but the lifelike way this Grimm was portrayed left no doubt as to its veracity.

The paper trembled in her suddenly slack grip, fear gripping her before she could get ahold of herself.

And then the breeze kicked up again and the page, still in Weiss' hand, was wrenched from her hold and fluttered out the window. The snow-haired heiress' eyes widened and she made a mad grab for it, wanting - no,  _needing_ \- to know more, to verify, even if the truth would terrify her, but by the time she reached the window that the page had left, it was already out of her reach, floating away with the wind. She watched it, resigned as her chance to find out flew away on the wind.

After the piece of paper left her view, she reluctantly went back to bed, resolved to ask her teacher about that picture, and then fell asleep. Not easily or quickly, but she did.

Of course, if she had stayed up just a little longer, she would've heard a muffled curse from right above their window before seeing someone carefully sneak in, leave behind the piece of paper that had flown off, and then leave, closing the window behind them.


	7. Interlude: A day at the General Store

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A day at the general store is interrupted by Rose who wants a little fun! :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this chapter may not seem entirely canonical with what I've already written, but it's in the past. Just keep that in mind.
> 
> You know, I've found I'm pretty good at interludes, rather than continuing a story. Maybe during the next story I'll put in more interludes.

 

Sitting behind the register of her general store had a bored expression before she decided to pull a bottle of soda from her breast pocket and began to drink. A few moments later, she stopped drinking and lay the bottle down onto the table in front of her with a lazy smile. It was pretty good. Then a long belch erupted from her mouth and she belatedly covered it with a giggle right before a sound like an explosion ripped through the air. Yep, today was going to be a good day.

"ROSE!" came the yell of another woman. "DID YOU JUST STINK US OUT?! GROSS!"

Rose turned to the livid white-haired woman with her handkerchief held over her mouth and glaring at her and smiled a little sheepishly. "Sorry Snow." She said, not in the least bit apologetic. She sniffed the air and, while a little fouled, was no serious issue.

The other three women with a stake in the store, on the other hand, held a different opinion, if their glares were any indication.

The door chime to Winter Rose's General Store dingled and Rose's attention was pulled to the front. As drilled into her by Snow, she had a duty to take care of her customers whenever they appear in the shop while she had control over the counter. She may have relaxed, somewhat, since her days of loneliness and ferality, but she had kept her focus and ferociousness, which had cleanly transitioned to business sense, particularly whenever a particularly affluent character drifted into her shop. Though she didn't exactly drive up the price sharply for such individuals, they still had to pay more than the working class unless they noted otherwise. Thankfully, almost none of the higher class and richer members really mingled with the cheaper individuals.

Today, however, she'd be cheaper than usual as her sharp and intelligent smile turned friendly at the sight of the bundle of energy that had opened the door to her humble shop with Snow. Still psychotic of course, but friendly. "Hey Ozzy! Who's your friend?"

A child with very messy brown hair and mischievous hazel-brown eyes which were brought out more clearly by his green t-shirt and darker green pants smiled at her from behind his inappropriately severe-looking oversized sunglasses. The eight-year-old gestured to his companion, a similarly-sized girl with long blonde hair, more severe rectangular glasses over somewhat flinty pale green eyes, and wearing leggings, a far-too-big white button-up and a purple blanket for a cape who happened to be glaring at him hard enough to try and set him on fire. "This is Glynda. She's a friend of mine." His face suddenly scrunched up as Glynda's did the same. "Did something die in here?"

Rose raised her eyebrows at the two children in front of her, still smiling at them. "Funny. No, I just farted, that's all."

His eyes widened in glee as he turned to his friend. "I  _told_  you that girls fart too!"

She crossed her arms and glared back at him. "No, we don't!" She argued back, her anger rather cute.

Rose smiled kindly and conspiratorially. "Actually, it's  _ladies_  that don't fart. You're still a girl."

Glynda gaped at her, aghast. "But, but you're a lady!"

Rose gave a bark of laughter at that. "Nope! I'm not a lady. Heck, I'm not even a girl. I'm a monster, and that disqualifies me from any kind of lady-like behavior!" She declared with a grin.

Glynda's eyes went wide, suddenly afraid. "A monster?"

Ozzy sighed with a slightly nostalgic smile, likely remembering his reactions to this particular fact. Rose smiled at that memory too, as she remembered how this particularly mature child had helped her figure out how to say it "appropriately for civilized society". "Well, you don't have to worry about me, I'm one of the good monsters."

"What's a 'good monster'?" Glynda asked worriedly.

Rose came around the counter to crouch in front of the girl. "There are many types of monster in the world, but there is a type of monster, a good type, that designates itself to protecting those who can't protect themselves. Hunters."

The girl's eyes went wide, this time in awe and adoration. "You're a Huntress?"

"Yep."

"Rose! What are you doing over there?" Snow called.

"Just visiting with the customers!" Rose shouted back, then paused, thinking about her family and what they're doing at this particular moment (a game they'd recently discovered called "Poker", though the current bets used were a combination of favors and sweets) and smiled sneakily. "Hey Kat! Get your hand off of Snow's Kitty treats and get over here!"

There was a gasp before a yell happened in the back, which preceded the sounds of a struggle and Rose cackled. It was so much fun getting her family riled up. She straightened before the raven-haired member got up to the front before hiding behind Rose to get away from their Icy member. She looked a little worse the wear, though most of that was the minimal damage to the black Yukata she was wearing and a few strands of hair loose from the bun it had been done up in that morning behind her black cat-ears. Then she noticed the two in front of her and cocked her head at them, glowing golden eyes studying them with interest. "Rose, who are these two little morsels?" She asked humorously.

"Well, Kat," She said, naming her 'sister' with what she currently went by, "This is the young Mister Ozymandias Arbigotti and his friend Glynda With-No-Last-Name."

"Hey, I have a last name!" Glynda said outraged. "And that is not Oz's last name!"

"Yes it is. And no you don't." Rose said simply, still having much fun. "Just like how Kat is not quite Blake's name."

Confusion cut through the girl's ire. "What's that supposed to mean."

Kat knelt down and smiled at the girl before pointing at her head and wiggling her ears. Glynda saw what Kat was pointing at and gasped. "You're a faunus-person!"

"Yes, I am." Kat said simply. "And don't worry about Rose here. She confuses us too, and we've had several lifetimes to get used to her."

Rose smiled and offered the young girl a small cylindrical object, keeping the girl from focusing on the fact that Kat was a faunus. Not too many people were really fond of faunus at the moment, especially not in the workplace. True, the girl was young, so the prejudice might not be there yet, but it was better to not focus on it.

The girl looked at the object that was shoved into her face, surprised at it's sudden appearance. She looked up at Rose, who nodded encouragingly and offered it a little more obviously. With some trepidation, she took it, and Rose answered her unspoken question. "Every witch should have a wand. Especially if they wish to play with Dust." was all she really said. And once the girl understood, that's all she needed. She looked the well-crafted object over, awed at the gift she had just been given.

A very loud sneeze broke the austere air to the room, startling Oz and Glynda, who barely held onto the object in her hands rather than dropping it.

"Holy cow, Dragon, did you just give yourself brain damage?!" Rose called out teasingly.

"Nope, I just- ack!" The blonde in question cut herself off as the sound of something beating on cloth sounded through the air for a moment. "Just set myself on fire is all."

"You better not have set fire to my candies, flame face!" The faunus yelled back, though without ire.

"Don't worry! Just my leather trench coat is all." The blacksmith called back.

"Um, how do I use this?"

Rose pulled her attention back to the little girl and her question. "Well, for now, you just wave it around like any other kid on the block with a new toy." She said with a teasing smile. "But when you grow up," she paused to push a button on the handle, which made the object extend to it's full form, rather than stay in it's storage form. It was a powerful black Riding Crop. "You wave it around while covered in Dust and you make things explode." Rose finished impishly to the even more awestruck girl. "Just, uh, don't let your parents find out, okay?"

"Why?" She asked distractedly.

"Because," Rose paused to fish out a packet of purple Dust to go with the present she'd just given away to the young child, which she handed over as she finished with, "Dust can be very dangerous, and most adults Wisely do not trust children with such a thing."

"Then why give it to me?" Glynda asked suspiciously.

"Because either I am not as wise as most adults, or I trust you enough not to blow yourself up in the process of learning." Rose finished as she pressed the button to retract the crop back into a simple cylinder and straightened. She looked over at the clock, then at Oz as she rose an eyebrow. "Is it my imagination, or did you tell me that you needed to do something with a friend at about 9 o'clock, Oz?" He nodded vigorously and opened his mouth to tell her what it was when she interrupted. "Then you better get going! It's 8:55!" He looked up at the clock in confusion, yelped at the time, and then bodily dragged Glynda out of the shop. "Have a good time you two!" She shouted as the door closed.

"That was unusual." Blake commented.

Rose shrugged, a happy smile still on her face. "He's a good kid with good potential. Can't wait to see what he can and will do, and his friend could be interesting as well, she just needs the right push." she explained to the curious cat-eye.

"Who was that?" Snow asked as she finally made her way in.

"Oh, nobody important, Snow. Just a friend and his friend." Rose said to wave away the curiosity. She turned to Snow with a malicious smirk on her face. "Now, aren't you worried that Dragon might steal your SnowBalls?"

"Nah, I-" Snow cut herself off, eyes widening in shock and realization. True, Rose had a tendency to eat anything in sight, but Dragon's tendency to do so with sweets was legendary in comparison to Rose's voracious apetites. She whirled around and ran back into the back room to make sure that Dragon did no such thing, the sounds of an ensuing fight causing the monster and her pet cat to laugh hysterically at the comical nature of their family. Life couldn't be any better at the moment.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it's short, and not quite the next part of the story, but I liked it, even if it did come right from the top of my head, rather than from the pages of pre-written words. Still, I think it's funny, and I think it works well as an homage to Monty Oum, who recently passed away. I know it's a little late, but as the guys at RoosterTeeth said, we should honor his passing with joy for he is now in a better place, and to honor his life and creativity with creativity of our own! Here's to you, you wonderful man.


	8. Grimm 102

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimm 101. Where we find out Rose knows Penny, and that Peter isn't all over-pretentious-ness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: You know, it amazes me that in the time it took to write the whole thing up on paper (first drafting, some extra that wasn't used [like the 2 pages I turned into a 3 paragraph cliffhanger last chapter], and missing a whole lot of embellishing and polishing that you guys got), I actually got 6 chapters, translating into 30 thousand Words! in a relatively timely manner! It just blows me away, just like the (relatively few) reviews I've already gotten. Well, true it's about one per chapter, but I've certainly enjoyed writing this, translating from paper to electronic media, and getting a consistent reviewer. I hope you guys are too (though, how could I know if you were if you aren't reviewing?) and I hope you enjoy this chapter! :)
> 
> And sorry about the huge wait. Other than school, which I recently dropped out of because I didn't to burden my family any further (and I'd killed my second car in six months. Totalled, meaning it would cost more to fix than to replace), I have no excuse for making you wait.

 

"Where is she?!" She began to dash away before her neck caught on something and she slammed to the unyielding asphalt. Snow found herself looking somewhat blankly at a big expanse of blue with a bit of cotton white as violet and catty amber eyes looked down at her, disapproving looks shooting like bullets from them before Dragon spoke.

"Chill Snow. We'll find her." She said as she knelt. "Don't worry so much."

"Didn't she say that she had something to do at Beacon?" Blake asked, eyebrow raised.

"That's exactly why I  _don't_  want to calm down!" Snow shouted at her family as she got back up and snagged her cape away from Dragon's hand. They were in full combat regalia, complete with swords and signature weapons. They were fitted for war. Or living in a Grimm infested area. Whichever comes first. "You don't know just how..." Snow struggled with the word for a moment. "Not competitive, just- You don't know how she can be around people, especially around warriors she doesn't know!"

"She did just fine with the Hunters back in Haven." Dragon pointed out reasonably.

"Yeah, well she knew them, and they knew and could accept her!" Snow shot back, trying to keep her voice level and just as reasonable, but... a bit of her hysterics were indeed starting to show through. She was extremely worried, and she knew that neither of the two in front of her understood why. They never had to deal with a creature that might as well be a Grimm in human form. Not like she'd had to.

"Excuse me, but who are you looking for?"

Snow jumped from where she lay on the ground, turned in mid-air, and slammed down her weapon - a heavy black longsword half as long as she was tall with white runes suddenly glittering along its length - into the ground right in front of whoever had surprised her. Her reaction, while not exactly normal for the general population of any of the kingdoms, was perfectly normal for her in such a high-stress situation. She blushed and grimaced sheepishly when she saw it was only Penny, thankful that she'd missed and only hit the road in front of her. "Sorry Penny, I didn't mean to lash out at you. "

"That's alright." The sunnily smiling girl in front of them replied. "Is there something bothering you?"

Snow gave Penny a measuring look, unsure if she should share. She knew the girl was an android, after having repaired the girl with Rose's help, and knew the girl was trustworthy, though naive due to her lack of exposure to the outside world.

Before she could definitively decide, though, Blake answered for her. "We're looking for Rose. She disappeared this morning with a note left behind and so we're worried about what she might do."

Penny looked confused. "Do you not trust her? Or is she perhaps in danger?"

"Oh, no, we trust her completely. And we know she can defend herself." Dragon said, warding off the possibility. "It's just, we're worried about her. We know she isn't the best with other people all the time, and we're a little hurt that she had decided to leave us out of it."

"That, and Beacon Academy, where she's at, or going to, is off-limits to the four of us by Rose's own decision." Snow added in after sighing. Just to make sure that Penny understood what she could of the full scope of things. "She's not known, not to anyone, for breaking her own rules, especially not without reason, and this is a big one. That could mean a lot of things, especially bad stuff."

"OH." Penny said with an understanding look and nod.

They stood there awkwardly for a second, Snow's panic about Rose being off by herself having been derailed by Penny's appearance and the snow-haired woman's thoughts about what to do with the girl and the others having followed her cues the entire day while Penny still felt herself a little too new to the group and too different from them to really know what to do next. She may have had experience with Ruby and her team, but she was also trying to follow the advice Rose and Snow had given her the last time they'd been together - "Get out of your comfort zone, get out and meet new people! The only way to really learn this field is by experiencing it yourself. But! Don't be too completely trusting until you actually know them." - and thus had become unsure.

Blake, seeing all this, decided to create a diversion. "Penny, do you only have one outfit?"

"Um, yes. Why?" She asked cautiously.

"Well, that's no good at all!" Blake proclaimed happily. "According to social norms of today, you need to have several outfits, one for each occasion, especially if your outfit ends up dirty!" She grabbed the android's arm and pulled her away towards the mall, fully expecting the others to follow, and certainly planning revenge, which always put a happy face on her skull. After all, she still needed to get back at Dragon for what she pulled last night, though Rose's punishment would have to wait, and plenty of other things, especially since Dragon absolutely  _hates_  shopping!

Behind her was a confused android, a slightly worried blonde, and an exasperated, and now thoroughly distracted-from-Rose, Snow Angel, all following the other woman. It would be another three hours before they left, right around 9:30, and they left, much to Dragon's mixed happiness and worry, because of a worrying feeling of fear just a few miles away, right after a phone call.

* * *

Team RWBY walked to Proffessor Port's Grimm 101 class (a rather useless class with who the teacher is and not only how he teaches and what the subject matter was, in Ruby's opinion. Grimm existed, and Huntsmen and Huntresses existed to kill them in order to keep people safe. What else did you need to know?), but that was odd because they were  _walking_ , rather than their usual mad dash to the next class, even if it  _was_  for Professor Port's class. While it was true that they no longer worried about what Roman Torchwick was up to, what with him being in jail and his plot to use the White Fang to cause panic in a terrorist attack foiled, it still wasn't quite "another day in paradise" for the team. Yang seemed to be distracted the past few days, while Blake hadn't been sleeping well because of her nightmares, though even what sleep she was getting now was much better than it had been before the dance due to her complete obsession with finding out what it was that the White Fang were up to. Add to that her little upset with Weiss last night and the fact that said heiress was not currently talking to her, making her feel like all the progress they'd made in becoming friends over the past few months had come undone with the snow-haired girl's frosty attitude having come back full force, and Ruby felt helpless to help her friends. Useless. All those things those kids at Signal Academy had called her, especially before Uncle Qrow had helped her become an expert in using her scythe.

She had no idea how to help them, and in Weiss' case, she had no idea how it even happened. True, the same could be said of the other two's problems, but Ruby knew that, somehow, she was the reason the problem with Weiss even happened, that it was her fault the fencer was giving her the cold shoulder, so it fell to her to make sure it was resolved. All she knew of it for sure so far was that, because neither of them had been able to sleep at all, she'd come down to have a talk with the fencer and, somehow, the conversation had turned to mythology. It had been a fun conversation until Weiss had accidentally insulted her and her uncle Qrow and intentionally insulted one of the most powerful things that Ruby held close in many memories. While that hadn't been fun, she had already forgiven her partner for the slip by the time she'd reached her bed. She couldn't have known, so why hold it against her? But the confusing part was just how cold and standoff-ish the girl had been all day. They hadn't slept in, though Ruby  _had_  forgone her normal use of the whistle her aunt had given her for one particular birthday, and that she kept with her as a lucky charm, in deference to their fight and her wish to not alienate the rich girl. Breakfast and getting ready for the day's classes had been pretty normal, though Weiss had kept her distance from everyone completely, which was even more unusual as even before initiation she'd been willing to socialize among other things, but today she'd been completely closed off.

Normally, she really couldn't care less about what everyone else thought about her, or she tried to be, and today was no exception for the brunette, but the odd looks were really getting to her today, making her even more worried for her sister and 2 friends, especially the girl she was just slightly behind as they entered the lecture hall that Professor Port used to give his boring lectures on things they already knew.

Her Uncle Qrow had never lied to her, nor would he ever, but that didn't mean that she could properly use his advice when it came to people like Weiss. His personal life, especially when it came to his love life, had been described as a train wreck by his sister, so she wasn't entire sure if the advice would actually work, but she had to try something. One of the bigger things she'd been told various times was, when someone really got like this, it was best to stay back and watch for a bit, gauge how they acted and reacted, before planning how to approach them. This was very true when it came to combat, but Ruby wasn't entirely sure how to apply it properly here, beyond observation.

As they sat down, Ruby watched the stiffness that the heiress put out, the measured front to keep calm and specifically not look at the red-frosted brunette next to her, or really anywhere else but in front of her. She was blocking everything out, determined. On, for, or about what, Ruby didn't have a clue. Yet.

Her face was drawn, drained a little and paler than normal, as if she hadn't actually slept last night, and maybe she hadn't. Ruby knew that she hadn't, as she'd been kept up by her own turmoil and worries after retreating from the conversation to her cave of a hanging bed with some anger at the heiress in front of her, yet it seemed like the rich girl hadn't slept at all.

Her posture was prim and perfect to the point of pain, determined and focused on whatever task she'd given herself as the rest of the class slowly filtered in, though the bags under her eyes, while near-invisible, were absolutely unmistakable.

Today, Ruby had sat a row behind her normal spot (third row), so that she could watch her teammates, which failed when the others sat in their usual relative placing, Weiss to her left, Yang to her right, and Blake on Yang's other side.

Then Yang leaned over and discreetly asked, "What's going on Ruby?"

"Nothing's wrong Yang." Ruby insisted lightly before glancing over at Weiss to check for change. Nothing new.

"No." Yang said firmly, but still quietly. "Ruby, you're distracted and depressed. Even with recent worries, this is really unusual for you. Something's really wrong, and given how Weiss has been giving you the cold shoulder today, it's something involving her." Yang noted astutely while Ruby shifted uncomfortably. She'd never been able to hide things like this from her sister very well.

"Nothing's wrong, Yang." She hissed back, trying to get the blonde to shut up already.

Thankfully, that's when Professor Port walked in and much of the class, and the few who actually pay attention, quieted down. That would make their whispers too audible to be private.

"Alright class," The portly professor began in his usual deep and cheery voice."I know that todyay's lesson is one you've been looking forwards to for-"

However, today they wouldn't be having the lesson they'd "Been looking forward to" because he was interrupted.

"Professor Port."

All eyes turned to watch today's brave interloper, who happened to be Weiss Schnee as she held her hand up high for classroom attention.

Professor Port raised a large steely gray bushy eyebrow at her panache. "You have a question, Miss Schnee?"

Weiss shook her head. "More of a request for information on a particular type of Grimm." She said coolly.

Ruby's brows furrowed. What was Weiss doing? She gave her friend a questioning look, but it had no effect as the heiress was tightly focused on their teacher.

"Well ask away as there is no Grimm in existence that I don't know about!" He responded brightly.

"Tell me about Hydras."

The entire room froze, or at least it seemed to from Ruby's perspective. This was about last night! Why would she bring this up where everybody would hear about it?!

"Weiss! What're you doing?" Ruby hissed embarrassingly loudly, earning herself a discrete kick to the shin from Weiss' booted feet.

"Well, to be honest, I can't help but echo Miss Rose." the Professor said nervously. "There are plenty of other Grimm I could lecture about, including the various different smaller Grimm, such as the surprisingly vicious and violent Squirrel-like Grimm or the interestingly peaceful Honey Badger-like Grimm, or even my planned lecture on the common Beowulf designed expressly to put every student to sleep with commonly known information, even among the most tenacious." Ruby blinked. He actually admitted to trying to put his students to sleep? "Why would you want to hear about a Grimm that is an unconfirmed myth at best?"

"Last night, I would have - and essentially did - agree with you." Was her partner's even and measured response, though she was starting to get agitated as well. "In the process, I hurt someone I car about, and after they left, a small piece of paper flew into my face, one with a nightmarish image on it, and one I could not simply dismiss as unfortunate fantasy."

"And why not?" He asked, his tone part challenging and part afraid. "I've known you to be rather inflexible when it comes to the truth, so why would you suddenly believe a myth to be true?"

"Because if the caption was true, which I currently have no reason to disbelieve, then there is a clear and unequivocal proof that at lest one Hydra existed about twenty or thirty years ago, even if it has been covered up since then."

Ruby felt helpless, stuck glancing between a determined Weiss who seemed to be going out of her way to attack their professor, and the professor that seemed very rattled for no apparent reason by this verbal attack. She didn't know what to do.

"And why is it that that picture, which may have been doctored and thus be proven false, convince you to change your stance?" Port asked, not unreasonably.

And then she dropped the deathblow. "It was a massive Grimm, double the size of the Nevermore Team RWBY fought off and killed during initiation bearing multiple heads on long, serpentine necks being stared down by a young man bearing a blunderbuss with the blades of a waraxe on the muzzle as a woman with a broken sword charged in from the side and a pair of men charged in as well, one a dark-haired man with a scythe and the other a younger man with a slimmer sword who is the spitting image of Headmaster Ozpin himself. I do not think I need to elaborate on who I believe the man with the rifle is, in this picture."

Ruby froze just as if Weiss had turned her into a statue with her sky-blue Ice Dust, and Professor Port was just as still. While she could probably guess as to why Port was now imitating granite, such as the fact that a similar weapon to what Weiss had described was held enshrined on the wall on a plaque, the professor's own weapon propped up for show, she had her own reason to be still. That picture sounded remarkably like the newspaper article she'd been gifted with once by her uncle Qrow, a great man who'd taught her how to use her massive scythe properly and was nearly at the level of God-worship in how reverently she would have treated him if it weren't for the fact that he was her uncle, and a rather fun individual to be around as well. He had given it to her, telling her that he was trusting her with a great secret of his that he would one day unveil completely. She still wasn't completely sure why, though the picture was kinda epic, but she  _had_  promised to keep it safe, so her panic was understandable, especially because she didn't want to be seen as untrustworthy and her description  _definitely_  sounds like the news article that Qrow gave her and I don't want Port or Weiss to be hurt, especially by Qrow if he gets mad, not that he will, but he might and I don't want them hurt because Port doesn't really know anything and Weiss is my friend and-

Unaware of Ruby's mental ramblings, Professor Port and Weiss continued their mexican standoff. "According to the caption," Weiss continued. "The main combatants were a Qrow Branwen, Glynda Goodwitch, a man called Ozpin, whom I assume is the headmaster, and you, Peter Port." She paused to let that sink in. Then she leaned forward and continued in a darker tone, "Is it true that you killed such a beast?"

"Well, yes, though not by myself and that particular creature was obviously a member of a rare species, one which you will likely not ever encounter." He replied, seeming to visibly sweat now. "It would be less of a waste of time to learn more about the more common Grimm and-"

Weiss interrupted. "It would be a waste of time to learn in here what we can learn more quickly and easily in the field." Ruby had never heard Weiss be so casually dismissive about almost any class or lesson, no matter how big a waste of time it actually was, and she knew Blake and Yang were actively staring at their white-clad friend as if she'd just grown a second head, just as she herself was. The rich girl was becoming truly incensed at this point. "Professor Oobleck said that if you don't pay attention to history, then you are doomed to repeat your predecessor's mistakes. So why won't you tell us about such a powerful Grimm so that we won't be utterly destroyed when one appears?!"

"Because he's afraid." The unfamiliar voice cut clean through the atmosphere that had built up like a breath of fresh, clean air, an everyone's attention was instantly brought to the source of the voice at the entrance to the classroom.

There she stood, well, leaned against the doorframe. She was tall and, to Ruby's young inner delight, less impressive in the bust than her, even with her black and red buckled corset over a deep scarlet shirt, though her hair cut, also black with red highlights, was  _much_  more impressive and mature, falling down to the ears and covering her right eye in a very dignified manner that, when combined with her imperious silvery gaze, made for a very impressive sight, and her visible ruby earring combined with the woman's expression made for a very mysterious image. A predatory one. A Hunter's true face, as Qrow would probably say.

Then the woman visibly noticed that everyone's attention was on her and her expression was suddenly all sweetness and light, a brightly amused smile covering the predator within. "Oh, don't mind me. Just minding my own business and snooping a little." She said brightly, her face the picture of innocence.

...Yeah, not even  _she_  was that blind. That face wouldn't fool anyone, not even naïve her or bumbling Jaune, and Jaune was considered the school idiot by most.

The woman waved at them, still smiling brightly. "Go on, continue like I'm not even here. It's just getting interesting after all."

"Why don't you explain yourself instead?" Weiss said acidly, more as a demand than a request and with an edge to her voice that Ruby wasn't sure she liked.

"Well, okay." The woman said as she straightened and began to walk down the steps to where Professor Port usually taught from. Ruby's thoroughly well-developed combat instincts had her evaluating the woman's posture and strides to analyze the possible threat level she might pose, possible combat style, and possible weaknesses.

First thing she noticed was that her black leather pants seemed to be high quality, but had a more homemade feel to them, partly from the thin helical red stripes going up her legs similar to those on Penny's pants, and partly from the sheer number of pockets they held and the loops at various points (likely to hold additional weapons or gear) which complimented the three clearly visible cross-worn ammo belts on her torso, though there was also the fact that they were rather loose, though not bell-bottomed, near the feet, but very snug at the hips.

The second thing that Ruby noticed as the woman walked the small 3rd row landing was that she wasn't actually wearing a buckled corset similar to what she wore in her normal combat uniform, but rather a number of red-lined black buckled belts surrounding her scarlet shirt, each of which was their own entity from the way they moved independently, and all held loops and small spots meant to hold ammunition of various types, complete with some dark ammunition which blended in with the leather-like material, and they were similar to the secondary ammunition belts strapped over her sleeves on her forearm and biceps, which held pouches and bullets and crystals just like the other primary ammo belts.

That's when she noticed an absurdly obvious thing and something almost as alarming as seeing that she'd missed the obvious thing. The obvious thing was the very large sword strapped to her back which looked like an oversized version of Jaune's sword Crocea Mors, though without an appropriately sized Kite-Shielth to hold it in. The not-so-obvious thing was the thin plume of diffuse violet smoke rising from the woman's right ear.

After the woman had crossed the few steps to the second row landing and was standing right in front of her, Ruby got brave enough to point it out. "Um, your hair's on fire." Immediately after, Ruby was smacked upside the head by a surprisingly familiar delicate hand - Weiss' - for saying something so completely stupid.

As the woman gave a confused "Hunh?" and paused at their row, Ruby turned to the disapproving Weiss right next to her and defended her dorkishness. "What? it is!"

"Oh! That's just my cigar." Ruby turned and saw the woman pull a thin stick-like object wrapped in a papery substance that was burning on one end, glowing like embers and releasing the aforementioned purple smoke. "I forgot that most people don't really smoke, and that it was even there in the first place." She turned to leave before she paused and turned back to them. "By the way, why did you use that particular method of questioning to get him to open up Weiss?

"I've seen my father use it on some of his more recalcitrant business partners." Weiss said. "Mention something they're afraid of, which is what you're getting them to do or explain, slowly ease them into it and let them quiver in ambiguitous fear, then drop the hammer, letting them ask questions to lead them where you want them to go."

Rose appeared thoughtful. "Hmm, well-reasoned, but that's nowhere near the most efficient way of getting those afraid like this to open up like you wanted with Peter here." Though, she didn't offer any was that was better than that before she turned around and finished making her way down to the now-shaking professor.

In that short time, Ruby finished her analysis which saw just how snug the pants were in the hips area (very), and how the bottoms of the pants near-fully covered her shoes, almost like Penny's pants. However, due to the way the pants covered the shoes, she couldn't get a better look at them, though the tread matched several sets of combat shoes that she had examined over the past few weeks when she became aware that she needed new ones. On the back of the belts pretending to be a corset in order to restrict bust movement and keep bones in their proper places were a few buttoned leather rings designed to hold the woman's broadsword with snaps for quick and easy removal without breaking or cutting the straps, possibly magnetic to make the "scabbard" reassembly easy and effortless. On her hands were a pair of metal gauntlets, somewhat similar in design to what Yang wore on her hands if the metal of Ember Celica were to also cover her hands, though these were a lot more decorative, some of which could be used as reinforcement on strikes and protect the hands from additional damage or add further damage to glancing blows, though they were not of the most sterling quality she'd ever seen. In fact, they were more reminiscent of Sun's gauntlets. They were somewhat tarnished, which did indicate a significant amount of silver in the alloy, but other than that slight weakness they seemed serviceable. There was also an odd pattern of pressed-down hair in a diagonal line on the back, indicative of, something. Ruby wasn't quite sure what.

Her stride was prideful, powerful, but slow and assured. It was, patient. This was not someone excitable like her, or aggressive and can't wait to fight, or at least not like Yang and her enjoyment of combat. But there was also a restrained... violence wasn't the right word for it. Aggression, rage, ferality, primal animalistic fury. Something that was just raring to get out but had been taught patience. To wait and watch and listen until just the right time. Her battle style is likely patient. Wait for the enemy to come to you, but do not forget to attack yourself. From the way she holds herself, watching everything around her, she's used to ambushes, being ganged up on, fighting off multiple enemies at once, though she does not seem to be completely unused to fighting one-on-one. Her muscles are strong, but not bared for aggression and intimidation. They remain hidden, keeping away what strength they hold until they are truly needed.

She holds herself like a few of the legends Ruby had met through her uncle Qrow. Like someone with history, who knows herself and knows the enemy and knows, for absolutium  _fact_  that she will still be here at the end of the day, but her enemies, the idiots who attempt to kill her today that is, will not be. Because she has had to learn that and been taught that ad nauseum.

That's about when the woman reached the professor, and when Ruby noticed the state the poor man was in. He was practically sweating bullets made of sweat and his face was far more pale than she had ever seen anyone, even Weiss, though it did seem to be regaining color, and he seemed to be in some sort of pain.

"Since I seem to have your attention," The unknown, yet somehow familiar, woman said, her earlier confidence making another appearance, tempered as it was by sadness, sorrow, and empathy. Not pity, but sympathy. "Here's how I know. You have Survivor's Guilt. A condition that I am very aware of, having been through it myself and have watched my family suffer from for years. We've all had people that we've lost, people we were supposed to protect." She slowly, gently, grabbed his shaking hand before pulling him into a surprising gentle hug. The confidence was gone, replaced by grief and a wish to comfort."It wasn't your fault. You did what you could."

Prof. Port pulled himself away with a strong jerk, the woman allowing him to pull back. "How could you possibly say that?! You weren't there! You never saw it! Not the destruction, not the chaos, none of it!" He roared, voice filled with self-loathing in a way that put fear into every student that heard it, very much a difference from his normal powerful, gaudy, and self-assured self.

She gave him a sad smile. "Lemme guess, Hollow's Ground?" At his sudden stillness, she nodded with a sigh. "Yeah, I figured. We were there a few years ago, destroying what Grimm were left over. It was a Nested Hydra, and you and your team were young and stupid. Thought you could kill anything. But you'd never encountered Nested Grimm, never seen a Hydra, never known what they could do. Me? My team? My family? We've seen it all too often, and while I usually just don't care one way or another, I've seen the sorrow on their faces when they see the destruction and I always have to remind them that they didn't break those buildings, they didn't kill those people, they were only just arriving and when you arrive is when your contribution actually starts. If you didn't know beforehand, then you didn't know beforehand. That's all. And I know more about the story than you might think." He turned to her sharply before she continued. "I read the article on what happened last night, because I was watching over the students when the piece of paper slapped me in the face. Interesting reading, but believe me when I say that I've lived through worse, and when the victims are people that I've cared about, including once or twice when it was entirely my own damn fault, it's a hell of a lot worse." She gave a self-deprecating smile with a faint motion towards her hair-covered right eye.

"And just how did you pay for your mistake, might I ask?" Professor Port queried, trying not to be too improper and ask about a touchy subject.

"Well," Rose said with a thoughtful, remembering pause. "The first village that I watched burn was because I set fire to it." At his surprise, she said bluntly, "What? They insulted Snow." She shrugged at his continued shock before continuing. "That one I got punished by Snow for, she hit me upside the head very hard. The others were pretty much unimportant, meaningless to me. Hunter's Haven though..." There was a far-off look in her eye at the mention of that town, a combination of pain and fondness and tears in her visible silvery eye which glistened with unshed tears. After another moment of leaning against Port's little-used desk, she continued softly, making the non-faunus in the room with their not-as-sharp hearing to strain to hear. "Haven," She took a deep, shakey breath before she could continue. "Haven was  _home_. The only home I ever had, and the only good thing I ever made. The only truly good thing of my own two hands that never corrupted into something wrong. A home for Huntsmen and Heroes." She pointed vaguely in the direction of Jaune and Pyrrha as she said, "Johnnyboy led the town, loveable idiot that he was. Great guy, pulled himself out and up after I helped him meet his wife, Pyrrhic. See, I insisted it be him, I didn't know anyone else pure enough, and I knew I'd destroy my one dream if I led it. Of course, Pyrrhic met him 6 months after he took the reins, and 6 months after was their marriage. Such a happy day that was."

A watery smile crept onto the woman's face as a tear fell from her visible eye. The pain Ruby could see in the woman's features and posture made her wonder, what could possibly be in these good memories to hurt her so deeply? "I could go on and on about the many wonderful things about them and the other Hunters of Grimm I knew, and about the town itself, but you're not here for that. You're not here to listen to an old woman ramble on about those who died to protect and serve, even if they were the best I ever saw, and I saw a lot of Hunters, though none could match Johnnyboy's determination even before we taught him how to destroy the nightmares. The man was rather instinctive about how to keep his friends alive and the Grimm dead. Good at it too." She paused for a moment before saying, "Well, once you got him to stop trying to look good or act amazing or try something stupid someone would say would work or prove himself, that is. It wasn't that he was a bad person, just wanted to make sure people liked him. Wore off after awhile, let himself relax and be a person." She shook her head, trying to get back on track. "Well, a long time after we'd established Haven, it was  _thriving_. People were happy and healthy and, barring the occasional death because of Grimm, we were growing faster and better than ever before. Pyrrhic was expecting, and Snow told me it would probably be a girl, and they had already gathered a few children who had lost their parents to the Grimm, so they knew from experience that they'd at least be able to get the kid to survive. Right about then, I heard a rumor about a Dragon in the area. I was always looking for a good fight, and at the time it had been..." She paused to try and account for the amount of time between the time she was describing and whenever it was she was looking for. Then she shook her head in defeat and said, "A very long time since I had killed a Hydra, with or without my family, so I was hard to restrain long enough to grab the proper weapons so that I could get to a good fight again, though part of that was because, if the rumors were right, it could've been close enough to find Hunter's Haven, and being a Grimm, that made it a threat, and I never took kindly to threats, especially to family, like the entirety of Hunter's Haven."

She sighed, now downcast as more tears started to fall. Ruby would be more concerned about her right now, but she was a little too enthralled by the story being told to care as much as she normally would. "It was closer than I could have ever thought. A day or two spent traveling in the direction it was said to be in, another to check and follow tracks and signs of damage, and a fourth to find the damn thing. Less than an hour's true journey from Haven, and it had  _nested_ , just like the Hydra you dealt with, Peter." Rose's eye squeezed shut, painful memories likely surfacing as she retold the story. After a moment, she continued. "I did the thing that I knew so well, I attacked. But even with my experience with Hydras, I was defeated within minutes. I would be dead, but the creature wanted to play with me. So I ran, like the powerless animal I was, blinded by the fear I rarely, if  _ever_ , felt, and I just tried to survive. Over the hills and rocks, and around and over trees I ran, ignoring what injuries I gained after my clothing had been torn to pieces by the Grimm, my weapons shattered, and just tried to get home alive. I crested a hilltop and saw Haven, close enough to touch. I paused at the sight, and that's what sealed their doom." the woman squeezed her eye shut in remembered pain, more tears streaming down on the left side of her face. But oddly, none on the right. "I heard a thump in the air a moment before a tree came crashing down on me. I moved just enough to slip and land face-up, leaving me in the perfect position to be stabbed in the eye by a broken branch while another tree came down and trapped my legs and shoved another thick branch through my torso." Gasps were heard throughout the room, the loudest seeming to come from Professor Port and Ruby herself. "I screamed. I couldn't stop it, and I couldn't staunch the blood because of the sheer size of the trees and the shapes and sizes of the debris in the way. A 'whump!' sound combined the the feeling of the ground shaking like a Monolith was passing by cut through the pain as my head was ripped from the branch's grip and I opened my eye to see through the pain and saw the dragon bending down over me, poisonous-looking acid spittle drooling all around me as it looked down and judged me. Red eyes shone down as the hiss of acid dissolved the ground and a growl like a Greater Beowolf pack multiplied put true, paralyzing fear in me for the first time in my life." She shuddered at the memory. "I saw a talon reaching down, but I could do nothing to stop it from touching me, killing me, since my head had ended up in a ditch of sorts, and I now lacked the power to move it. I felt it touch the ruined remains of my eye, and moaned, as that was all I could do. I knew I was about to die. But then it pulled back, blood coating the claw as it spread it's wings and after looking at me one more time, it took flight. I watched it as it descended upon Hunter's Haven, burning it to the ground, and I knew as I watched that I had brought it there, that I was the cause of all that pain and death, and I wept, for loss of a dream and the removal of family."

Ruby swallowed thickly as the loss of the woman's family in the story touched the part of her that had a similar pain from losing her own mother. She knew the pain of losing family well enough, and she saw Weiss similarly affected out of the corner of her eye, making her wonder who the heiress had lost. The tears ran freely now in grief, sorrow, and remembered pain. The woman's breath hitched for a moment before she continued. "I went into what is now known as shock, my body spasming violently as the psychological shock of all the pain combined with the poison now flowing through my body, courtesy of the beast that had razed Haven to the ground, and the rest I don't remember. The next I remember, I was on a bed of pine needles, well-bound in bandages and cleaned with only a little more than half my vision left and Snow attending to me. She told me-" her breath hitched again before she continued. "She told me that when she'd found me, she'd found a bloody body with tears pooled in a ruined eye, which had some odd black goo on it and in it, which was being absorbed by the cloth over my eye, and the thought that I might actually die." She looked down at her shoes and gave a soft, sad chuckle, finding something oddly funny inside her mind. "Of course, before I woke up, I'd never known that such a saint could be so very cruel."

"And what do you mean by that?" the portly teacher asked.

She looked at him with a sad smile. "Well, who else but a saint could accept a monster like me?" She said in a tone to match her smile. Then she continued before anyone had a chance to respond to that. "Snow is the one who woke me up to those basic ideas like 'Kindness' and 'Morality' by affording me mercy through an amazing and powerful grace even though I have  **never**  deserved it. I am, and always will be, a complete and utter monster." When he opened his mouth to protest, she held up a hand. "Save it." She said, suddenly tired, a little winded from having to recall- no, re-live such painful memories. Whatever it was, it hurt. It was bad, and it still hurt even now, many years later. "I've heard it often enough from Snow and my customers. As for Snow? She took care of me, even after I attacked her with a desire to kill her and after being told, quite accurately, that I was worse than even a monstrous Grimm. Her cruelty after Hunter's Haven was burned to the ground was born of the same mercy as she nursed me back to health. A week or two later, after the salve on my eye had done all it could and I could stand on my own, I ran off after she fell asleep. I'm still not entirely sure whether it was to track down the Dragon and kill it, or simply to pick a fight and die. Probably both though." The older Huntress gave a soft snort. "Didn't even make it three days before I was bound and thrown over Snow's shoulder until I could calm down enough to be told never to do that again."

The tone with which she had told her story had entranced the whole room, Ruby especially. She had been raised on fairy tales like this, and it would have been right at home in her father's rather thick, heavy, and rather dusty copy of Grimm Tails. The book itself was rather old, and the stories it held inside were even older. Far older. Some were supposedly about people just living in a time where Auras and Dust were nothing more than dreams.

For a moment, there was utter silence in the room.

That simply would not do, or so the universe decided.

That's when the chime of a Scroll going off for a face-to-face conversation coincided with one of the other students (one Ruby was unfamiliar with, directly behind her) loudly calling out "Bullshit!"

Ruby jumped as the woman gave the room at large a soft smile as she pulled her (obviously custom-made) Scroll from her pocket. "Well, at least someone has the balls to call me out on it." She said as she pushed on the blinking yellow diamond shape in the middle of the front, answering the call as the Scroll widened to show the screen, which, transparent as it was, allowed the students to see the white-haired woman who looked strikingly like Weiss in a rage (and also very familiar) as Rose suddenly cringed in fear and sheepishness as she prepared for the coming chewing-out.

"ROSE RUBELLITE OF THE RED RIDING HOOD, DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG WE'VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR YOU?!"

"I'm sorry Snow, I've just been a little preoccupied. I wanted to check on Ar-"

"Shut it!" The brunette's jaws shut with a click.

Oh, that's why they're familiar. The woman here was the same one she'd had fun with in the Mall, and the woman on the screen was her friend, who'd had to fend off Rose's unconscious attacks. Odd, Rose looks so  _different_.

Snow glared so powerfully Ruby thought Rose might be set on fire. "Didn't I tell you never to leave us like that again?" Her voice dangerously low.

Rose tried, and failed, to suppress a snort. "Funny story 'bout that: I was actually telling that story to Peter Port to make him feel better about Hollow's Ground."

"And did I not tell you  _specifically_  to not even so much as set a single  _foot_  in Beacon Academy?" Snow continued on as if Rose hadn't spoken. Oh boy, Rose is in serious trouble.

But then Snow blinked. "Wait, you did-" She paused to allow what had been said to reach her properly and then continued on, more powerfully, "Why in the hell would you do that?"

"Because the poor boy was feeling his survivor's guilt, and I told him he wasn't alone."

Snow paused, apparently thinking. "So he was at Hollow's Ground, that place that the Hydra trashed, where we saw all those fangs and bones and Grimm, right?"

"That's the one." Rose said brightly.

"Okay, given the destruction, I can believe the existence of the guilt. I still don't see how that applies to me finding you under a burning tree near the wreckage of a dead village with a ruined eye." The white woman said. "Speaking of," She continued, seemingly ignoring Rose's guilty look. "Show it."

Rose appeared unsure. "Um, my eye?"

"Yeah. It's been a month, and we agreed to check on it every other week, remember?" Snow said slowly, as if explaining something to a child who should already know what was being said. Ruby knew this tone: Weiss still uses it on her every so often. "Since we're overdue..." Snow trailed off meaningfully.

"But, there are other people here." Rose said a little edgily.

"So?" The other woman said dismissively. "If you're at Beacon, then they're Hunters. They can take a slightly squeamish sight."

Rose paused at that. "Snow, we're screwed up, you know that, right?"

"What does that have to do with you taking off your eyepatch for an overdue checkup?" Now, Ruby wasn't always the most observant person when it came to people, but she thought that maybe Rose should just do as told because Snow was getting obviously ticked off.

"No, it has to do with the fact that they're  _children_ , not really experienced, blooded Hunters. They haven't even started into 'queasy' territory. They won't be able to handle 'slightly squeamish'."

"Well, too bad for them they're around when you chose to suddenly grow a conscience." Snow said, scowling up a storm in a scarily accurate impersonation of Weiss in a rage.

"Alright, fine. Just don't blame me for whatever you hear." Rose grumbled back.

She went over to the Professor's desk and propped the scroll so that it lay at an angle that could see her and gave Snow one last baleful glare before she stood straight, removed the suddenly visible eyepatch, black with a red border and a scarlet rose embossed in the middle (not as fancy as the one on Ruby's belt, but still undeniably a rose), and Ruby immediately blanched. Now, from the woman's story, one might think there would be very little left, especially given how long ago she'd implied it to be. Like, if there was newer flesh that had grown into the eye socket, resulting in a more or less solid plane of skin, or perhaps a loose patch of skin that used to be the eyelid, or perhaps a glass eye underneath that eyelid, but under the patch had been a sunken, misshapen closed eyelid where some sort of black  _goo_  was slowly leaking out from underneath.

Now, Ruby had seen plenty of cheesy gory action flicks (and a very few horror flicks, sneaked when neither Yang nor their father were watching, which had left her with more than a few sleepless nights), so she knew the signs of things being faked. This, this was not faked. There was no goo on top of the eyelid that would point at it being from the eyepatch, no smearing that might indicate barbecue sauce or really any other sign that she knew of. This goo, whatever it was, really was coming from underneath Rose's eyelid, maybe from the eye itself, and it did not look fake at all.

Snow sighed. "The  _entire_  way, Rose. As your personal eye doctor, I need to see it." Came the voice from the scroll.

Rose hesitated, then Ruby turned to Team JNPR and gave a soft call to them. "Pyrrha, cover Jaune's eyes. Ren, do Nora's." When they looked at her, queasy but confused, she hissed out, "Do it!" She was acting on instinct right now, which said that the two more innocent members of JNPR should be spared whatever they were about to see, just as she knew that she needed to see it. She didn't know why, though she might later describe it as being that, as the Team's leader, she needed to see whatever threat might arise with open eyes. Besides which, she wasn't quite as innocent as everyone else thought she was, but either way, she knew she would regret this bullheaded decision to see what was under the eyepatch.

She wasn't disappointed.

Rose sighed and opened her eye, slowly and flinchingly, as if the act of opening her eye pained her, and Ruby had to hold back the bile suddenly burning at her throat, and she heard numerous disgusted sounds and a few cases of vomit.

Part of what made this worse was that the eyelid still seemed basically normal, even held some sort of normal shape. This though, this was not an eye. This was some, horribly misshapen, pulsating black mass that resembled a rather disgusting and squelchy ball-shaped Grimm's body. The fact that the entire mass that had replaced the woman's eye was seeping that same black goo, top to bottom, was getting her close to vomiting. She knew she wasn't alone in this, and she was kinda thankful for those few sneaked movies because it helped give her more of an iron stomach against something like this, and she was suddenly very glad that she'd asked Pyrrha and Ren to cover their partners' eyes. Jaune would've thrown up for sure.

There were a few clinically detached hums from the open scroll on the desk. "Well, while it'd be better to see it in person, I can definitely say from here that it looks a hell of a lot better than last month, and infinitely better than when I first found you there all those years ago." The thought that it could be worse, while initially incomprehensible to Ruby, was quickly replaced with a possible image based off of "Creature of the Black Slime Lagoon", which involved an intelligent set of tentacles growing out of the eye, which nearly sent Ruby over the edge into vomiting. She held it in (barely), though she could taste the bile and hydrochloric acid on her tongue, and she held back a shudder, trying not to remember days as a kid when she threw up often. She vaguely heard Snow say that she would have to apply a new coating of some herbal paste or other.

Suddenly, a slight breeze blew past her ears, through her hair. Strange, Ruby thought. In Beacon Academy, you never actually felt the drafts the likely powerful air movement systems, probably installed by AlCSys co. because you never heard it or felt it but you knew it was there, created to keep the air from getting stale or stuffy, but this felt like a weaker version of Signal Academy's air flow on a hot day, except for something she couldn't fully put her finger on, except to say that it was...  _wrong_.

Then, as Rose was putting her eyepatch back on and covering it with her hair once again, the light breeze carried something past her nose. A small stench, light and diffuse but definitely gag-worthy, and more importantly, it came from behind her, rather than from Rose and her damaged eye. Immediately after, she felt an odd tingling sensation in her aura.

Of course, she wasn't paying it the slightest attention, as that's when Rose stiffened.

"Rose?" Snow asked worriedly. "You okay honey?" There was no conscious response to that, but Rose did put her hands to her head, right around her ears, face screwed up in pain. "Rose!?" Rose started making small pained noises and started to shrink in on herself, still ignoring Snow.

Ruby didn't remember standing up or walking over, but she did remember Snow screaming to a "Dragon Blake" that Rose was "flipping in pain" right before Rose flinched back from her outstretched arm as she asked the older woman if she was okay, despite the very pained expression on the older brunette's face.

"Don't touch me." She said very tersely, pain lacing her voice very clearly.

"What's wrong?"

Ruby was only marginally surprised to see Weiss beside her. The Snow Angel had softened and lightened up a lot since the beginning of their first semester, and was willing to do a number of additional things with her that she never would have before Beacon. True, she was still a complete Ice Princess, all Prim and Proper and stuff, but she acted like a person now. What  _did_  surprise Ruby was Rose's reaction to her.

First was a strained and whispered, "I can't hear you over the noise in my head." Then she got a good look at Weiss's face and it went from strained to stern, confused, and annoyed, which was mirrored throughout her body language. "Why the hell don't I see you using crutches, Weiss?" She asked in a more normal tone and volume, pain seemingly disappeared. "I don't want to have to restitch your stomach because you ripped them out after having endured an experimental emergency treatment like that. You could bleed out." She said it all with a tone very much like a doctor lecturing a bad patient, which was a tone Ruby actually knew quite well from her own visits to the hospital, whether for Yang, or for herself after certain treatments and surgeries.

Weiss chose to take that statement differently than Rose likely intended. "Was all that nothing more than an act?" She asked irately.

"No it wasn't, I-" Rose cut herself off, apparently surprised at her own words, and blinked. "Wait, I can hear you now. That means..." She trailed off, eyes widening in realization. She swore softly and asked, "Do you guys have your weapons nearby?"

Weiss gave her a look that clearly called the suddenly panicky woman an imbecile. "This is a combat school. Of course we have our weapons."

"Mine's at my seat." Ruby admitted, and if it was a tiny bit sheepishly, then who could blame her? "Why?

Weiss obviously could, if the way she turned her "you are an imbecile" look to bear on her.

Suddenly, the big door in the back of the classroom that everybody mostly ignores by now rattled with a resounding " **Doom** " sound. Rose fluidly turned to face it in a ready stance whilst Ruby jumped and Weiss took a step back. "That's why." Rose responded with a snarl, blade now in her hand while the quick draw "scabbard" reassembled the snaps on it's own, giving the younger brunette a happy moment for a successful identification. That moment was interrupted by a second massive door rattle.

"Go! Grab your weapons and armor and prepare for the fight of your lives!" Rose commanded, and the partners nodded and went to do as requested.

But they weren't able to get to their dorms to grab their combat uniforms. When they got to their seats to grab their weapons and stand with their team, the door was rattled a third time, which knocked it down and an oversized Beowulf leapt out, right at the team.

Paralyzed in fear and surprise without ready weapons, they waited for death to tear them to ribbons.


	9. The Ballroom Blitz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We have a huge fight!  
> And oh look! A new type of Grimm appeared! :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I gotta say, thank you for sticking with me. It's been amazing, how people actually take the time to read my stuff. Yeah, I don't get a lot of comments, but hey, I make good fiction, and to most of me, that is it's own reward.
> 
> Doesn't mean I won't make puppy dog eyes and wag my tail and hit you over the head with it until you review and tell me exactly what you think of it (And this is very important: Not what I "want to hear", but what is in your brains!), or that I won't smile hugely when I do receive a good review, but writing this and finding out just like you do what happens to Rose and her family is a major happy thing for me.
> 
> What I have here is absolutely amazing, and I gotta thank you for listening to my rambles.
> 
> There's no way we'd be able to get to the actual Grimm killing if we didn't. :}
> 
> Now, I have one final note. I did not actually check it over and proofread it, nor did I get a beta to do so. So, if you find a small screwup or mistake one way or the other, please let me know, and I'll fix it. :)

 

The 'Wolf leapt at the class and instinct kicked in. Rose leapt at the Beowolf, tackling it in mid-air and arresting its forward motion. They bounced apart when they hit the ground and Rose scrambled to her feet, bringing her near-forgotten blade to bear, ready to attack, falling into old patterns of merely human slowness attacking stronger and faster Grimm, where timing was everything, the difference between killing the Grimm in front of you and dieing on it's claws.

Unfortunately, she had mislabeled her opponent as a merely superior Beowolf and was still getting ready to attack. She did see it leap, however, so she moved her blade to defend (or attack, she wasn't sure which) and prepared to dodge. But she'd seriously underestimated just how old the creature was, and so only managed to move the blade enough to place the blade between them, just as the 'Wolf was about to chomp. Later retellings (when asked to) would go between truth and "I planned to do it, if differently", but she had no idea what she was doing right at that moment as the Beowolf reflexively chomped down on her blade rather than her. That turned the pounce from a deadly strike to a painful setup for another lethal strike.

Thankfully, it reared back to swipe at her, probably to swipe her head clean off, which allowed her to bring her legs up and kick it off. Then she leapt to her feet and charged it, swinging her sword right when it would be in range.

That was when she decided to re-evaluate her opponent yet again, as the sword tip; and body that was supposed to be slicing the beast's head off was currently missing from the now-obviously broken blade. The jagged edge never made it near the wolf, and as she over-balanced from the doomed strike, the 'Wolf gave her another swipe that knocked her across the room. Speed: Much higher than average. Strength: same. Durability: If jaw strength was any indication, high enough to make most high-quality weapons useless. Rather like last night's Ursa, in fact.

She leapt to her feet, looked at her blade, then at her now focused opponent, and dropped the blade without another moment's thought, standing at the ready for another attack.

She heard a deep and powerful set of clicks, like a high-caliber transforming rifle being set up and cocked, and she sighed without blinking or looking away. It was probably just a student, a child with no idea. "Save it. My blade was probably a much better quality a weapon than yours. Shooting'll only piss it off or hurt me instead." For a moment, she considered pulling her gun or her Dust knives. Then she smiled. "But don't worry, I'll kill it, same as I've done for years."

"And how's that?" A voice asked. Male. Teen, but, while scared, arrogant and self-important. Sarcastic too. That one's important.

She gave the Grimm a feral grin and settled into a familiar law stance she'd created by watching Ursas. "The Old-Fashioned Way, of course. By hand." And then, by some mutually unseen signal, both combatants struck.

She leapt in with a punch to the face, dodging down to a near prone position to avoid the uppercut response while pulling in her legs. Then she put her feet to the ground to perform a leaping body check into the Beowolf's abdomen, where its guard was nonexistent.

That's where it's best to attack one when sharp blades or overpowering force won't work. They barely use or protect anything below their hanging chests and overly long arms, and their backs are completely unprotected other than by a few spines. Well, the younger ones don't. The older they are though, the smarter they get.

She dodged back by jumping off its chest, wary of the possibility of it striking while she was falling back. It'd been used on her before and she'd used it herself once or twice, plenty of times against those evil squirrels!

She began to run at the Beowolf as it began to regain its bearings, but then her eyes widened as she slipped and yelped because of it. Not one of her prouder moments. Most likely? She stepped onto the intact blade tip. There was a rather solid yelp from the Grimm. Yep. Definitely the tip.

She knew that the next few moments would be an unofficial rest time, probably - if Grimm still played by the same rules that include their intimidation tactics, that is - and turned to the left and, surprisingly, saw every person in the class either dumbfounded and unsure or afraid and rooted to the spot. 'Come on people!' she thought to herself. 'When will you idiotic sheep get smart?! You're Hunters! Act like it!' She knew she looked ridiculous, left leg splayed to the front and all, but that was no reason to gawk!

"What the hell are you doing?" She yelled at the students. "Go get your weapons and combat armor! Let's go!" She turned back to the Grimm as it got back to it's feet, the only slightly piercing blade tip falling out of its shallow home before it hit the ground with a ting. Then it was the Grimm's turn to yelp and fall as it slipped on the errant blade tip as it tried to stalk forward. She gave a small yelp of her own as she saw the blade coming after her (which was likely what happened to put the blade in the Grimm in the first place), and then she gave a half turn to the side to avoid it before pushing herself to her feet, grabbing the bits of her sword from the ground in front of her, handle and bloody tip, to move them out of the way as she stood. She glanced around for any further obstructions (finding none, even Port's desk was gone) before falling back into the guarding version of her loose and ready Ursa Stance. No Obstructions, no traps, and no one else important. Good.

'Well,' She thought to herself as the Grimm stood a little unsteadily. 'Cinder's here, but she's not important enough to hide this from.' She finished her thoughts with a slight grin. " **Well, it looks like it's just the two of us now.** " She told the Grimm in it's own language.

It shook it's head as it settled into a spring-tension ready stance. Then it growled out a response. " **I understand, Human, but I say the same to you.** "

She smirked as she nodded in understanding of the unspoken words. Just you and me. I can go all out and I will destroy you. And you have been and will be an opponent I treasure. " **Thanks for the compliment, but you already know how this will end.** " One of us dead, the other blazingly victorious. Me.

It gave a snarling growl as a question. " **Yes. Why?** "

Why am I doing this? Why am I protecting the Humans?

She opened her mouth to respond, but then she heard an oddly familiar voice resound through the building that she believed to have once been a castle.

"All students, may I have your attention?" It said before continuing with barely a pause. "There is a large number of Grimm approaching the academy. Classes are temporarily canceled until they are dealt with. Equip yourselves for a long and difficult battle." And the PA cut out.

She smiled at the Beowolf. " **Well, there ya have it. More Grimm to kill. Besides,** " She said, feeling her face relax and soften into a more terrible grin, one promising enough spilt blood to turn the hallways into a gigantic swimming pool. " **You attacked the kids under my protection. Can't let'cha go after that.** "

The Beowolf let off a howl, one that promised as much blood as her smile and that he'd a note of approval to her rather unique mind.

Time to let the monsters out to play.

They charged each other at the same time again. This time, she went for an uppercut with her left gauntleted hand, wincing as she heard the metal crunch. Yeah, most weapons here at Beacon would've done absolutely zilch against this one. If his face could start to crumple her very sturdy gauntlets which were made of better metal than most had for their weapons, then said weapons would break first chance they had. Well, third probably. They'd crack first.

In her moment of thought, the 'Wolf had recovered and slammed a clawed fist into her, sending her flying into a wall. Solid. What else could she expect?

The Beowolf lunged and so she did as well, not wanting to die mewling like a kitten.

That's when an explosion of fire went off, turning the Beowolf's leap into an uncontrolled flight lesson which was enough to propel him into her unexpectedly, and both of them straight through the thick and solid wall.

While she couldn't be completely certain, she was fairly sure Cinder exploded them. The little fire witch would hold a grudge, probably, and she obviouisly had plans for her stay here in Beacon, perhaps the same ones she'd had when assaulting Winter Rose's General Store several years ago.

Hunter and Grimm skidded on landing after going through the stone wall, her on bottom until they slammed into what felt like another Grimm and they separated, her going a lot further than the oversized Beowolf. When Rose stopped moving, a bear claw was coming down on her. She raised her arms and stopped it with little effort and no more than a slight grunt.

Then she dumped it to the side and grabbed the large black furry arm to climb it like a rope, breaking off a white spine along the way as it raised her up, then she looked the Ursa right in the eye before slamming the spine in to the feral red eyes. She didn't spare the now unmoving bloodless body another glance before returning her attention to her duelist, absently noting the raging battle around her. She locked her gaze onto the intelligent red ones as their owner swatted away a teen clad in armor swinging a mace.

She charged once more, killing the Grimm around her with absent-minded strikes to the brain with her gauntlets as she did. Then she reached the Beowolf she'd been fighting and swung down on the arms, the simple metal vambraces knocking the 'Wolf's guard clean open and allowing an uppercut with her right to solidly connect to it's jawline. With it dazed and confused on it's back, now was the time to strike. on a whim, after remembering how the blade's tip actually  _had_  nicked the beast, she pulled out the remnants of her blade and swung, unknowingly mimicking a criminal as she cut a train car's link to the engine and her links to her past and participation in a now-violent former protest group, while smiling regretfully at the fact that she had to finish the fight by no longer pretending to be merely skilled, showing her augmented strength on par with Dragon and a few of the Hunters she'd seen and heard of that had graduated from a Combat School like Beacon and Signal Academies.

The head went flying, the Spouting blood trailing along. Then the monster who still lived looked for her next opponent. Good question for later: why were there so many Grimm already inside? For now, Who Cares? MOREKILLSFASTER!

She pulled a Dust knife in her left hand and pulled out her 10 Special in her right after sheathing the remnants of the broken sword. This weapon, the 10 Special, is a 3-cylinder revolver with a 20 bullet back-up magazine clip in the grip, is one of Rose's own design, which uses homemade bullets, also of her own design, that don't really use Dust for propellant and are so good at piercing through Human/Faunus Auras and Grimm Hides - even the smallest calibers could go straight through, ignoring almost any such protective coverings - that she called them Grimm Killers. now armed with superior weaponry and a sense of purpose, she strode off into the melee, shooting though Grimm masks, slicing straight through arms and throats and masks for quick and easy kills, occasionally just bashing in Grimm heads with gauntleted hands for the check of it, and prioritizing her attacks to those about to strike down an unprepared or unknowing student or teacher. Even with experience, it's still all too easy to become blindsided, especially from behind in such a surrounding melee.

There's an old phrase that goes "Speak of the Devil and He shall appear." Rose didn't particularly believe in it, but she had to admit it sometimes had merit, such as how she was suddenly sent flying forward from a strike to her back, coincidentally knocking into a Boarbatusk that was trying to run down an unprepared Johnny-Boy lookalike. What was it that Ruby had called him as she'd taken off her eyepatch? Jaune? Like John with a French accent?

'No matter.' she thought, shaking her head to clear it and focus as she mechanically stabbed the boar's heart through the stomach with the Dust knife in her right hand, which slipped form her grip, covered in Grimm Blood and grabbed by Grimm FAT. She reached for another knife, a Red one, but paused to look at her hand and consider.

Blood on her hands. Not a new thing, exactly, but she'd found it rather lacking in the free-for-all. Just the Beowolf and this Boarbatusk so far, and they were both a bit more trouble than normal, though that was only noticed in the effort taken to slice through it's skin for the Boar.

In that moment she decided that, today, Grimm blood meant bad things for the 'average Hunter of today' and decided to explode it with a burst of her Aura by setting off the knife that had been in her hand, leaving her with a smile as she heard the squealing of pain from the supposedly dead Boarbatusk as the limbs twitched wildly while Dust-driven electricity sparked out and around, which told her the Knife she'd been using had been Yellow.

Now assured it was Dead, since the screams had died off before the sparks, she pulled out the Dust Knife she'd been going for, Red Flame, and spared a glance for the blond teen to her right (wearing old and slightly raggedy blue jeans and a black hoodie under a grey set of breastplate and shoulder armor) to ensure he'd live, and then dashed off to kill more Grimm. She fired at a few more, saving a man in green with spiky gray hair, then a woman with a riding crop and a black cape before slashing at a pint-sized Taijitu which was lunging at a somewhat in-shape man in purpled clothing wearing spectacles. He seemed like a sharp man, no use wasting  _his_  mind.

3 dead Grimm and a quick contemplation of a second buckling gauntlet later, Rose heard a crash from above and turned to it with an internal sigh. Flying Grimm would be such a pain, no matter the size.

Rose's fears turned out to be unfounded, however, as the figure flying in was rather obviously  **not**  Grimm, and the swords that came from her back even less so. Still took her a moment to get over the creep factor though, by which time the swords' puppeteer had killed numerous Grimm, resulting in a rather powerful lull in the fighting.

For a moment, she was so struck by the similarity, that she legitimately thought the puppeteer was an old friend, and called her as such.

"Pennalos?" Rose asked, happily shocked to see her.

The figure turned with an amazing fluidity, but there was a certain level of restriction to the motion which destroyed the illusion, and reminded her of the truth. Her old friend was dead. Long dead. The figure sighted her, and surprise registered on the figure's face right as Rose's mind caught up to reality. "Rose?" Penny asked. "What are you doing here?"

"I could say the same to you Penny." Rose remarked smoothly and affably as she tried to get her brain back in order and back in the moment. No use trying to resurrect friends by thinking the living are the dead. "not that I'm not glad to see you, but aren't you supposed to be getting ready for the Vytal Festival?"

The puppeteer nodded. "I convinced father to let me go to further explore the town. My time looking for a dress for the dance had been fun, so I'd wanted to see more. I bumped into Snow and the others while out and they bought me so many things!" She explained with a happy smile.

Rose nodded, a comprehending smile growing on her face. "Which is why it took them half a day to check up on me. Because you distracted them, and before that they probably thought I was asleep." She paused. "Where are they anyway?"

A roar cut through the near silence of the auditorium, interrupting Penny's response and causing Rose to look at it. Barreling straight towards her was an angry Ursa, occasionally knocking slower recovering students to the sides. Rose sighed and pulled out her broken blade , gun left on a torso loop as she waited for the creature to be in range, ready to slam her blade down the bear-thing's throat.

Even with her perfect timing, she wasn't , it was slowed down by one, then two, of Penny's swords stuck into it's side. Then a blazing figure dropped out of nowhere to slam a sword across it's neck , one wide enough to behead the beast with a single stabbing motion, letting the head roll to Rose's feet while the person continued to hold the blade, which ended up carving up the floor.

Rose smiled at the figure as she stood and withdrew her sword from the ground. Tall, butt-length golden hair, built like a tank and wearing a long tan overcoat worn open to show off rock-solid abs surrounded by her bust-covering shirt which Rose had made herself, a skirt-like tan leather wrap covering her ammo belts and a set of exercise shorts with steel-covered leather boots and iron-plated gloves for her other obvious weaponry. Not that she needed it, but the purple eyes and blinding smile confirmed it for her.

"Hey Dragon." Rose said with a smile before deciding to tease. "Can't resist the dramatics, can ya?"

"Nope." Was the blacksmith's simple response. However, when those purple eyes met silver, they began to harden, smiling exhilaration giving way to annoyance and anger.

"What's wrong?" Rose asked, genuinely puzzled.

You do know she's pissed at you for what you pulled this morning, right?" Dragon said flatly. "Yeah, that was kinda expected." Rose said slowly. "Doesn't explain why  _you're_  so angry right now." She pointed out.

The blonde pulled her large sword out of the ground where it had been resting tip-down and slung it across her back across her shoulder, handle in hand, as she stalked over angrily, knowing full well that it was completely useless to try and intimidate the red-frosted brunette, only dimly aware of the students in the way that hadn't moved yet. Dragon never could spare the dramatics. Rose decided to play along, affecting on an obviously fake look of fear as the blacksmith raised her broadsword to slam it into the ground as menacingly as possible with a very loud "Clang!" Glaring at her friend as deeply as possible, Dragon growled for a moment before asking somewhat pitifully "When were you going to tell us?" anger losing steam as desperation tried to replace it.

Rose struggled not to break the image by blinking in confusion. "Tell you what?"

Rose could see glimmers of water in Dragon's eyes, and she knew that the woman was close to tears. "That you are systematically replacing every thing that we'd lost before we woke up in Vale."

Now rose did blink. That sentence did not make sense wi- OH! "No leaving family out of the loop on important things!" Right.

She gave her "sister" a somewhat sheepish look as she remembered the rule and responded slightly nervously. She knew the ferocious blonde probably wouldn't kill her.

Eh, probably.

"Um, when I was mostly finished?" She stated/asked with an unsure smile.

Dragon grabbed her sand shook her violently as she roared "How could you do this?! How could you purposefully keep us out of the loop on something this important?!"

Rose grabbed the bigger blonde's arms to stop the shaking, or at least conceal it from the curious onlookers, thus allowing coherent thought. "Because I wanted you three to have a  _pleasant_  surprise for once!" She stated matter-of-factly. "I mean, yeah, there are a few I won't make because I've either been waiting for you guys to do them yourselves or because I'll need you guys to forge them with me, but I wanted to replace the physical things so that you could remember the good memories, and I didn't want you to hurt by doing it yourselves."

Confusion showed on Dragon's face as a few tears fell. "Why can't you make those yourself?"

"Because we made them together last time, so we'll make them together this time as well." Rose stated with resolve.

And back came the glare. At least the tears weren't going to come anytime soon. Dragon squeezed tightly before she let go. "I really,  _really_  hate you when you make too much sense. You know that right?"

Rose nodded, happiness coming back to face and voice as she returned the squeeze and relinquished command over Dragon's body. "So. Where're Snow and Blake?"

"They're coming, they're just helping out with the outside mop-up. Once they feel the students have the Grimm under control, they'll come in." Dragon explained. She took a step back and paused, a little shocked. "Wait, why do you have soot all over you?"

Rose looked down and had to admit she did look pretty dirty. "Someone exploded me." She said simply, trying to get out of explaining. At Dragon's astonished "What?!", she gave up and elaborated. "I was killing a Beowolf in a classroom shortly before the Blitz here when an explosion knocked it into me and us through the wall." She paused to put on a thinking face. "Not sure, but I think it was Cinder over there." She pointed at where the raven-haired girl's Aura was. "Since we were the only two there at the time." She put up two hands to calm the blacksmith, or at least keep her from going over there. "Don't worry about it. She's just scared." She paused, this time to put on a thoughtful look. "Well, I do owe her for last year at the shop, but I'll deal with that later." She tried to keep her tone neutral, but something must've given her away.

"Wait, what'd she do to the shop?" Dragon asked, mildly alarmed.

Rose stepped away to end the conversation as she said, "Never you mind, it doesn't matter." She looked for the teens who'd caught her interest among the piles of Grimm corpses. Wait, there were more than there should be. How many blooded Grimm were there today anyway?

"What did who do to the shop?" A voice asked calmly but dangerously.

Rose froze for a moment before continuing her search, deciding to ignore the comment before striding towards the object of her search. Snow didn't need to know.

As she calmly navigated a particularly congested area of Ursa and Beowolf limbs while considering just jumping over them before deciding the probable butt-first landing to be not worth it, Snow's voice rang out again, just as quickly ignored. "Wait, is that Cinder Fall?" Climb over an Ursa body, then, "Seriously Rose, what did this girl-child do? I had to pull you off to keep you from squishing the life outta her before the police saw and got the wrong idea."

Just keep ignoring them. "It's not your problem guys." Oh, nice job ignoring them!

"Hey!" Dragon's voice rang out, irate. "Didn't I just remind you that Family problems are to be shared?"

'Darn it. Me and my big mouth. May as well have posted a Dust-Neon sign.' "Well, it's not a Family problem, it's  _my_  problem, one  _I'll_  deal with in due course." She'd reached her destination, where Ruby had been leaning on Weiss, exhausted and taking advantage of the break in fighting to sit down. She extended a hand to each of the two. "Come on, let's find your family."

They took her hands gratefully, though Weiss tried to hide it as she said, "My family isn't here."

Once they were on their feet, Rose paused to stare at Weiss for a moment, just as pointedly as she was completely ignoring Snow's last attempt to grab her attention before the woman gave up, knowing that when Rose didn't want to talk about something, there was close to no chance of forcing the issue. "You call the man who doesn't care about you family, but not the teammates who would die for you?" She shook her head, not waiting for an answer as she moved off.

Food for thought from a monster to a princess. The people of her village were rolling in their graves right now.

"That's not what I meant."

Rose looked back at the girl, raising a slightly grumpy eyebrow on what she knew was a brooding face. The ivory heiress actually seemed to falter for a moment before gathering resolve and standing firm. "I meant that we left Yang with Blake when the tide of Grimm forced us apart, but I heard Gambol Shroud and Ember Celica going off outside."

Rose blinked, made an assumption (that that was not Weiss' original response, and that she had changed after what Rose had said), and nodded, then she made her way back to see if she could help the two walk out.

However, she was interrupted by a loud, rumbling, ear-splitting roar that did little to her directly other than make her sigh. She was definitely going to feel this in the morning. She turned around to see the biggest Grimm ever seen (inside Beacon, that is. Relatively speaking from experience, it was dang puny, though 20-30 feet tall was definitely nothing to sneeze at).

For a moment, it's structure reminded her of an obese giraffe from a book she'd seen once (before remembering the book had called it a Salamence). Then she saw the bone configuration.

None in its long neck, a few plates on the legs and back, but what really caught her eye was the way the skull plate was configured. It looked like a cow skull, but with sharper teeth, blunter lines, and an unforgettable ominence and feeling of awesome evil power. Like Skullgreymon.

"Hydra!" She shouted, turning to Penny, who was already in motion. "Don't-"

She cut herself off, knowing her pained expression wen with her sigh after she heard the sound of Penny's sword separating Grimm flesh before a heavy thud resounded through the air, the sounds of outside combat suddenly dwindling. "Cut off the head." She finished lamely. She sighed again as Penny turned to her, probably looking confused (though, that was a guess as Rose was looking plaintively at the floor). "Dragon?" She said, exasperated. She knew her family, and they knew what to do.

"Already on it."

"What's wrong?" Penny asked curiously. "Was it something I did?"

"Oh, you did nothing  _wrong_ , precisely." Rose replied as she heard fire over near the Hydra's body. "Just that we have a more efficient method that usually works. Usually, anyway." She hesitated. There was something wrong, something in the air, that told her it wasn't over yet. Not even nearly.

"No good!" Dragon yelled. "It won't light!"

Rose sighed. If the neck stump won't light, then it just got difficult. Had she mentioned that she was gonna be feelin' the pain in the morning? Cause she was most definitely going to feel it tomorrow. Suddenly, she perked up and spoke with much false cheer.

"Well, I had nothing planned for my day. What about you guys?" She asked of her team, facing them.

"Nada." Dragon said as she began lighting what Grimm corpses were left undissolved, clearing the field.

"Nothing pressing I can't put off." Blake said simply as she readied her blade.

"I was waiting on you." Was Snow's equally fake cheerful reply.

"It's set then!" She finished with a smile. Then she turned serious and faced Penny. "Penny, stat evacuating everyone from the area. They're too used to relying on Auras, so they'll all be badly damaged. Get out everyone you can, student and teacher, starting with the building's inside. I don't care if they struggle or protest, if they haven't fought a Hydra and won without Aura, then they're civilians who nee to stay out of it for their own safety. And yes, that does include you once the fighting starts." She finished, making it clear just how serious she considered this upcoming fight to be.

"What's going on?" Ruby asked.

She turned to the brunette. "You'll see in just a moment." She turned back to the redheaded android and pointed at Ruby and Weiss, who were still leaning against each other. "Get  _them_  out of here first, preferably to the rest of their team. They said the others are outside.

Penny nodded. "On it." Then she hopped over to Ruby and Weiss and hopped out the window she'd entered from, since the very large front doors were still closed, completely ignoring their token protests.

Rose glanced around, noticing that pretty much all the corpses were burn't down to cinders, if they hadn't just dissolved. Then she looked at her family, all of them with anticipatory grins and ready stances, swords in right hands and guns in left hands. She smiled and did the same, but with a Red Dust knife in her right and her 10 Special holstered near her belt buckle. They faced the now-twitching corpse, ready to fight as one unit. To slaughter with impunity just like in the good old days.

To show everyone who saw why and how they'd earned the name The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

"Seriously though, what in the Grimm Hells did she do to you?"

Rose's heart nearly stopped right then and there. "Ack! Snow!" She said, whipping her head to look at the offending concerned smirker. "I told you not to worry about it!" She turned back to the now standing, though still headless, Grimm and rushed it, trying to see if she could kill it by striking one of the heads while they were still pushing up out of the neck. Nothing but her and her knife, to see if this could be finished up quickly the old fashioned way.

The knife shattered in her hand, peppering the thicker-than-expected skin like wet sugar pebbles. In a panic, she exploded the pebbles, forgetting to get herself away in time and thus getting rocketed across the huge entry hall (but not big enough for any Hydra) and letting her Aura take the damage. She acknowledged in that moment before impact, that without Aura, not only would she not be in this predicament, but that she'd also be paste after this without it. Then she slide along the ground, ripping up tiles until she hit the wall next to the front door. She should be dead, but she wasn't.

She shook her head with a groan, trying to clear it enough to see. Not the best way to start the fight, but it 'll do as long as she can recover.

When she could see, she saw them surrounding it, confusing it, testing its reactions and its hide, Snow and Dragon using powerful sweeps when they could while Blake stabbed at the chinks in the whit armor on the legs, on its belly.

A thought tried to finish in Rose's head and came out muddled. She shook her head and tried again. Keep family safe. Check defenses.

Well, that's clear enough for her.

She stood, purpose in mind, and spoke. "How's the white?"

"Not good!" Snow said before she screamed with the effort of another slash before dodging the foreleg she'd struck. The Hydra screamed with the pain and the left head came down to land on the Snow Angel.

"Look out!" Rose screamed, not yet able to get her body to move right while straightening up. Way too stiff, like every muscle and bone was locked. An unfortunately familiar feeling. Snow dodged in time to let the head hit the floor, but Dragon was hit by the right foreleg unexpectedly.

Rose narrowed her eyes. This was familiar. No focus, the left head used to try and smash Snow on the right, slightly wobbly, using wrong leg to attack a pain source.

"Rose!" Snow yelled. "We could use the help here!"

"Rose's brows furrowed. Help? No, that's not he word for it. She looked down at her self and hopped a few times. Her body jangled, loosey goosey like she was supposed to be.

That wasn't the word either. What was it when -

Her vision went black but she knew she wasn't dead or unconscious because of the pain in her forehead. This was confirmed by the pain in the back of her head when-

She blinked and tried to snap her fingers. Didn't go well because of the body on top of her - breathing through the nose to prepare a shout, smell Blake's shampoo. -, but that's okay. "C'ncushun!" Okay, shouting into a mass of hair - not fun.

She curled her feet around her and hopped up, carrying Blake with her. She spit out the hair and shouted. "I got it!" She ignored Blake's noise complaint as she explained. "It's concussed! Confused! Hurt it more!"

She rushed it with the additional strength - not the superspeed. Big difference - and jumped to slash it in the neck. Right side of left head with a blue Dust knife in right hand. What was this one? Water, Ice or Wind. Not sure without pausing, but no time! She bounced off the thing's back and barely missed the tail, but realization mid-air distracted her from her landing, making her faceplant.

She stood up and turned around, studying the thing. It's back was soft (expected), it's bone plates where hard and sharp and many (expected), it's neck, now necks plural, were long and slightly limp where the boney plates gave wiggle room (expected), it had a tail (unexpected). The legs were tree-trunk size, and as tall as Snow or Blake or Dragon! (Also unexpected)

Her eyes shot wide as Snow shouted, "This isn't working!"

"It's growing! The Hydra's growing! We need to lead it outside! " She shouted as she ran for the beast, once again going for the throat but from behind. So, she jumped up, bounced off it's back, and made another slash, this time activating the Dust knife, sending a line of something along the same line she'd been slicing to do additional damage to its right neck while leaving the left neck to bleed.

Of course, she should've looked at the knife before the strike as she now had a miscalculation on her hands, if the sonic boom was anything to go by. The thud a few moments after the roaring of pain, which occurred as she landed and before they all collectively jumped through the newly broken window (Blake, Dragon, Snow,  _then_  her), only confirmed it. Wind, which had led to cutting off the right head when she'd only wanted it slightly more focused so that they could lead it out. She couldn't stop her sigh.

She heard the thundering footsteps before they landed. If this kept up, she'd be at least a mess of bruises by morning.

Right before she and Snow land, the wall behind them shattered rather explosively, landing pieces all over the place and slamming into the mid-air monster and her saint just before they touched ground. Well, at least it was a door, rather than a group of stone blocks. That was a blessing, however minor. They ended up sliding along the ground, pulling up cobblestones from the path rather painfully.

There was a roar, and Rose used her superspeed for the first time in the entire day (discounting, of course, the pre-midnight hours) in order to face her opponent.

3 near-identical heads glowered at her imperiously. She snarled, which was mostly directed at the central one for existing, it and its right brother being longer and more slender all throughout the now-massive length, bone plates further spaced in a permanent taunt of "cut me off, I dare you!" and the smugly implied "after that, I'll eat you up in one bite." , which was further established by the creature pulling back lips to reveal teeth in a sick parody of a smile.

Damn creature was beautiful, and, of course, someone had to give in to the taunt. This time, it was Penny, if the 3 green-trimmed swords through the soft necks were anything to go by. She sighed, snarl deepening as eh turned to Penny again, letting Dragon go about it without order. "Okay Penny, no more fun for you! Stay out of this and let the professionals deal with ti!" Penny started to protest, but Rose cut her off. "Look, I know and understand, but you're getting in the way! Every time you cut off a head, it only get stronger! Now it isn't even partly concussed! Now, if you get a clear shot, you can use the Arkos Kannon, but nothing else, got it?!"

Reluctantly, the android nodded.

"Good." She said with a nod of finality.

"No good!" Dragon yelled. Rose turned to see her battle-sister ablaze next to the corpse, which wasn't charring in the slightest. "It won't light!"

"Then we fight!" she roared as she pulled out her broken sword and readied herself.

The body stood once more, still growing, and 5 necks forced themselves out of the stumps in a very grotesque fashion, bulges exploding into menacing and horror-inducing images of rage. The following roar only reinforced the image.

She aimed her gun, unused in the battle before, and fired,k internally cursing her lack of attention as after only one shot, the three cylinders pooped out (2 on the left, one on the right) and the magazine dropped a little, signalling a complete lack of ammunition. Luckily, she hit the middle left head, but the Grimm-Slayer round only chipped the head plate. She readied her blade and threw it.

Her blade, a better quality metal than anything else here (other than her family's blades because she'd grabbed a crap one on purpose), shattered against the center of the middle head, the one that had come from the middle neck all by itself, and her eyes widened as she saw the black and reed X across the wide area on its larger head.

She swore the most powerful curse she had at the creature (no effect, of course. It was only words) as it began to charge them. "It's an EVO! We need to kill it -  **NOW** **!** "

" **No shit and Holy shit!** " Blake screamed as they all dodged out of the way, leaping when individual heads came down to smash them. She knew that Blake would skip along the ground on all four like a cat, Snow would roll along, dirtying her cap, Dragon would probably try a flip off her hands and probably fail, and she just tumbled along until she could get back up. She'd actually gotten so good at that that she was in absolutely no danger at all.

And then the large head went straight for her. Sending cobblestones and her flying hard enough that she should've broken her back after she wrapped around the tree. It was thick and it cracked loudly under her force of motion. At this rate, she'd be lucking to be mobile tomorrow. She groaned as tried to land on her hands and knees after the short distance to the ground, but the forces and recent bodily stresses were a bit too much for her this time and she did a flat belly flop.

Superspeed to hands and knees, shake head (doin' that a lot today), Superspeed to standing, glance at now-dead tree, reload 10 Special by running it by the ammo on the belts on her front, snapped it down to push the cylinders back in and grabbed a new Dust knife (Yellow : electricity). She shot twice, the first hit the mid-left, breaking the plate completely where she'd chipped it earlier, and the second killed it off, destroying the brain and leaving it limp and in the way. One less weapon, one more hindrance. Good work, now get back in the fray.

A flaring red light slammed into the far right head right before a black blur appeared to swipe at the far left head and Rose's eyes widened as she also noticed a yellow mane of hair coming from the crowed. She'd forgotten the Beacon students!

She dashed in as she yelled, "Penny! Keep the students back!" a thought passed by. "Matter of fact, keep the teachers back too! They're all exhausted and none of the young have any Hydra experience ! Now is not the time to earn any with an Evolutionary Hydra!"

She jumped up to try and stop the black blur, which she noticed had a twitching black bow that was further back than wind alone would bake, especially with how Auras affect clothes and hair, but she was too late, having not factored in toe speed right at all, and decided to swipe at the center neck, which snapped at her as she passed. So she missed both opportunities.

Oh well, she made up for it by planting the knife in the neck hub mess, right in the center, and was rewarded by a powerful spray of blood. She heard a thud hit the ground and saw the brain-dead head on the ground as she turned around and around in the air.

Another screech of rage as more powerful red flares streaked towards it and she finally noticed all the pockmarks from the bullets Snow, Dragon, and Blake had undoubtedly been pouring out throughout the fight, too quietly for her to notice (as well as a few she'd fired off without thinking.). Then she hit the ground, feet first if you can believe it, and then barely dodged the thick stream of unruly flame heading her way from the Hydra's main head.

Then the Grim began appearing.

Beowolves, Ursa, Boarbatusks, even miniature Nevermores, Taijitu, and Deathstalkers. All walking out of the Hydra's furry skins as if they were leaving an Airbus.

And finally, for the first time in  **10 long years,**  Red finally snapped.

No more nice games. No more childishness or holding back. Just pure, unadultered violence, killing, and bloodshed.

It's time to let the monster out once more and let it have  **Free Reign!**

She stood. She activated the Dust knife in the Hydra with an outstretched arm and shouted, "No more games! WE KILL! Blake! Get the Faunus! Dragon! Get the girl! Snow! LIGHT IT UP!" By the time her Aura pulse hit the knife, she'd finished speaking and making preparations. See, while she'd been barking orders, she wasn't idle. She'd grabbed a small red bottle from her chest and sprinkled the Dust all over her hands - somewhat sparingly, she'd actually  _learned_  form the past - and pulled them back before lighting them up and pushing them forward with her hands, like making a large splash, and sent out a tsunami of fire at the now electrified Hydra. Then she let instinct take over and rushed the Hydra as fast as possible without setting herself aflame.

Time became a blur, a perfect clarity without reference. Time passed and attacks were made, seemingly independent of each other. She jumped higher than the gigantic Grimm body, which was now an even half as tall as the entrance hall of Beacon and about as wide, firing off bullets and slashing with every sharp thing nearby. Dimly, she heard massive gunshots and realized that Blake and Dragon had pulled out the bigger weapons and the kids and adults in the crowd were helping as they could, but it wasn't as if they needed it.

A Nevermore flew in her face. It was the size of a crow, so she grabbed it and bit its head off, literally. Tasty, but unfortunately only morsels can be taken at the moment. Too many Grimm to kill!

Hack, slash, chew, jump and slash, swallow, dodge, bounce bounce, grab, bite and crunch, observe (Snow, Blake, and Dragon. All of them have a light in their eyes that has been conspicuously absent of lat. Good to see it again, even if they're holding in the smiles. She didn't bother holding in the grin or the excited laughter and war whoops. It has simply been too  **damn long**), jump, shoot shoot, crush, slam, toss. The battle went on and she loved every minute of it.

A tiny Deathstalker and a tiny Taijitu both jumped at her and she had to make a choice. Half second later, she chose a simple, if unexpected answer.

She grabbed the snake by the neck and gobbled the palm-sized scorpion whole. Well, she chewed on it first, killing it and enjoying the crunch, but she still it it more or less whole. Then, after killing a few more and shooting the Hydra some more, cylinders popping out again on empty, she swallowed and bit off the head of the still struggling double-headed snake. They were awesome! Could use smoking though, and maybe some sauce.

She continued in her dance of death, cooperating freely with her family as they'd done so often before, jumping all over the battlefield and trying to bleed the Hydra dry. She never stopped the war song when it came, grinning when her family joined in her wordless song of death.

Her song became less exuberant and more fatigued as she noticed that the Hydra's hide was becoming difficult to slice through, the plates not even becoming scratched when she attacks, and the large mass of heads and necks had become like a patch of weeds, seemingly innumerable. She hopped up as yet another head tried to dive down and eat her, climbing on the neck as it rose with an Ursa in its mouth. Then she hopped from neck to neck, easily avoiding being eaten, but not crushed. Finally, she made it to the other side and decided to try and finish this. "Penny! Charge it!" She commanded as she hopped far away and grabbed a small blue bottle of Dust as she used the last of the red bottle on a medium-sized Deathstalker, maybe the size of Beacon's Front Door. She dropped some ice-blue Dust on her right hand and faced the Hydra, noting her family still trying to hurt it and beginning to sweat. "Clear! Freezing!" She commanded, trusting them to hear the message and get out of the way.

They immediately disengaged as she had earlier and she windmilled her right hand, once slowly as a practice while they disengaged, and once quickly once clear, activating the Dust on the second turn and activating the Dust and casing a huge wave of Ice to appear, one big enough to temporarily freeze the titan of a Grimm before them. It raged in frustration as she yelled to Penny, " **FIRE!** "

A huge beam of green elemental power lanced out in to the multiheaded beast, causing a scream of pain and an explosion powerful enough to knock everyone on their butts.

For a moment, she thought it was finally over. Her family and her charges were safe.

She was wrong.

As she struggled to a sitting position, her wounds finally catching up to her as Snow and the others began to slowly walk over, 4 things happened in quick succession.

Two malevolently glowing red eyes shined out of the explosion's dust, causing her to freeze. Then a Hydra head snaked out insanely fast. 3 of them, in fact, one at a time.

One hit near Blake, sending the experienced Jaguar Faunus flying.

The second hit near Dragon immediately after, sending the brawling blacksmith flying.

Then the third one hit, but cruelly. There was just enough of a pause for Snow's eyes to widen in realization and lock gazes with Rose before she was sent flying as well, struck directly.

A sudden gust of wind blew away the smoke and dust, revealing a pristine condition Hydra staring her down, seeming to gloat smugly. It seemed to silently say, "I have destroyed your family, taken away what is most precious to you and survived all you have thrown at me. What can you do to me now? What do you have left to throw at me? When all is gone, what is left?"

After a moment of this gloat, she lost it completely. Rage overtook what was left of intelligent thought and she screamed in rage. Then things got blurred and the next thing she knew, there was an explosive boom of several Hydra head hitting the ground behind her unexpectedly and the ground beneath he feet was moving by, fast.

Her eyes widened as a rational realization occurred: They weren't stopping. What was most likely more than two or three tons of Grimm and herself were neither slowing down nor touching the ground. She could keep going.

The cliff! Push it off- Wait. A few hundred feet? What was to say that'd kill it? And what was to say it wouldn't hit Vale? Put their entire lives and her new home in danger?

Instinct told her. Up. Using Accel Rings, go UP.

And so she did. Letting instinct control her once more, she felt some part of her doing,  _something_ , and it was working. She and the Grimm were going faster and faster, the ground giving way. Need to pull up or be road pizza!

And then she started climbing in altitude. And climbing.

_And CLIMBING!_

So high, she left the clouds behind!

She looked to the side and saw the main head of the Hydra, as denoted by the X on its skull-plate, suddenly not so smug. Staring forlornly at the fast-receding ground. It looked at her, almost as if to ask why.

She blinked, a little rage receding, and (through instinct alone) sped up and went around it to stand on top. Then, once they'd lost all upward motion, she used instinct to keep them completely in place, other than its main head and her. She saw circles surround the beast in a ring, an she saw the beast still looking at her, resigned to its fate. Still asking that silent question.

So she answered.

"I am killing you because you tried to kill me. But more than that, and worse, you tried to kill those under my protection. You tried to kill what's left  **of MY FAMILY!** " She screamed. "You tried to destroy me and so you shall pay the consequences. Besides, when you strip everything away, all that's left is me." She put her arms out straight, pointing at the two biggest circles holding the Grimm in place and let instinct take over once more as she, first twirled, causing the two circles to become a ring of circles, and then forced her arms down, creating a column of containing circles. Then she drew a circle in the air, making Accel Rings all the way to the ground and a black circle beneath her feet on top of the Grimm. She wanted to make sure it died! And that she didn't fall off in the process (thus the circle at her feet). And that no one else was hurt by this (thus, the column of solid containing circles).

Then she let go of the ones holding them up, hopped then superspeeded to place her hands on the very briefly weightless Hydra, feeling the gluing of the circle as she made contact, and  **pushed**.

Down and down and down they went, going faster and faster and Faster! Black began encroach upon her vision, but she would not stop. Not until it was Dead! She heard it roar one final thing in common Grimm, but she didn't have time to comprehend it. The very next instant, she heard a crash on a level never before personally experienced and then she blacked out, satisfied that she'd killed it.

Maybe now she'd pay her final debts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have no idea how many typos I semi-purposefully made when writing up the first part of the battle scene on the computer. Man, it was like looking at a minefield!
> 
> And, I couldn't stop myself. If you have a Professor Peach here, then why not another fruit/color prof? And some of you will have no CLUE what the heck I'm talking about (I never did, but then again I was the youngest and I was up against my super-genius-seeming brother and he always knew who had what without cheating or relying solely on his yes/no card sheet), but I just had to put in both that pun and that character. Announced internet cookies to the first one to guess who I'm talking about here!
> 
> By the way, I was definitely influenced by the Starkiller Vs Shaak Ti fight on Felucia in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, back when Rose was among the many necks of the Hydra. Those who have played the game probably know what I'm talking about.
> 
> Sonic the Hedgehog games also influenced this work, at least in part.
> 
> Sorry about the double-chapter size, but it deserved it.


	10. The Infirmary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's time? It's Time?! Did he just say it's TIME?!~"  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY_mbam6vIs  
> The final chapter of this story, the wind down of the day, but not necessarily the end of the tale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay people, last chapter! Yay!
> 
> Only took me, like, seven months to get it done. Whoops! :p
> 
> Well, I finally finished it, no matter how much I procrastinated, and am ready to get you people started, so here we go!
> 
> But before we begin, many thanks belong to the great and powerful Shadowmaster of archiveofourown! Without him, I'd still be completely stuck. Ugh.
> 
> And it helps to have an outside perspective on your own works from time to time. :)
> 
> Also, if you have any song ideas, send a link to it on YouTube for me to watch/listen to and I'll think about putting it in.
> 
> One final note is that, I did wait a few days, because I wanted to add in my cents worth to help honor the memory of Monty Oum, great man that he was. Never met him, but I saw that his work inspired a lot of people, and I can only hope that mine does the some to an extent.
> 
> So, here on the 1-year anniversary of his death, the final chapter to my RWBY story (though not necessarily the end of this plot) and the mark of the first completed success in my literary armory!
> 
> And just for the heck of it:
> 
> MONSTA'S OF HIP HOP DANCE TOUR, YO!
> 
> (Thank you Mr. Brewer for being an awesome Auto Trans teacher! And for not yelling at me for writing this story in class because I got it so easily, and even taking it and making it a fun thing about me. You're awesome! :])

At the top of the tallest tower of Beacon, silence reigned, broken only by the clocktower gears as they turned, though even they seemed quiet too, contemplative like their master.

A soft voice cut through the silence. Feminine, somewhat annoyed, and barely revealing the pain she must be in, but resigned to the reality of things. "I had a feeling I'd find you here."

Mahogany eyes opened and gazed upon Glynda Goodwitch, her normal ruffled dress shirt destroyed and temporarily replaced with an old, ill-fitting t-shirt that tired to cover extensive bandaging from all the damage received during the assault on their prestigious home. Her normal business skirt had also been replaced by a rarely-used pair of black slacks, though the bulge of thick leg bandages showed rather clearly if you knew to look for them, and the knee-high leather combat boots she wore instead of her normal heels were definitely out of the norm for her, but at least they gave her injured right ankle support the heels would've taken from her, allowing her to walk unaided and continue to portray the image of an unharmed Huntress, completed by her flowing (if slightly ripped at the edges) black cape, missing a few brass studs, though it was.

An image she'd always striven to keep.

"You, should be in bed." He commented dryly.

An annoyed look crossed the huntress's face. "So should you. You were badly injured and you need your rest."

He cut off the rest of her speech with an amused eyebrow raise. "Just because I no longer launch myself into battle does not mean that I cannot protect myself or my students, including you." He said in quiet rebuke, and she gave a quiet wince at the reminder. He pulled his coffee cup to his mouth to savor the victory while hiding a smile. He set it down with a soft thunk, right next to one of the most famous collections of fairy tales, including ones about the great monster Grimajeow, the valiant Hunters Rubel and Angel, and the many, many stories of the greatest team of Hunters ever to exist, known only as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as well as a few of the most legendary Grimm. A favorite of his ever since a certain Faunus had shown it to him during his childhood, when she was taking a break for the day from her own shop in her friend's home and workplace. "Now, while my hair may silver, I am still a Huntsman. I can take care of myself Glynda. Better than you can, might I add." He noted, his soft smile in plain view to help soften the blow. Glynda had always been rather rash and prone to giving in to her anger, which always led to mistakes and thus to injuries.

She sighed aggrivatedly and turned away, causing his smile to fade in confusion. As one of her students had once explained to him, and rather accurately at that, Glynda Goodwitch was the most judgmental, stubbornly headstrong mule of a woman to ever 'grace the world with her presence'. She never gave up in their banter this easily. He let her take the time to pace and try to organize herself. Just as he was about to interrupt and ask what was wrong, she beat him to the punch.

"Just who are they?" She asked simply.

He chose not to make her ask twice. "I don't know." She looked at him sharply, demanding an explanation for such a lack of information.

While he was known, at times, for not informing his friends and allies when he thought it best they did not know some of the things he knew, he was never known for not knowing. And while he had participated in the brawl which had threatened his school, his _students_ , he had been knocked out of it fairly quickly inside his office by some venturesome Grimm, which is what prompted him to make the public address to the students when it'd proven troublesome to deal with. That fight had nearly knocked the life out of him, and had left him somewhat handicapped, and he'd felt trapped and helpless at his desk, unable to help beyond watching his students as they fought off the collective Grimm. The footage was mostly grainy at the level of enhancement that allowed him to see faces, something he wished to remedy as soon as he knew where to shop for better hardware and software, which while it wasn't ideal, it had been enough to watch his students to know which ones deserved a pat on the back for their actions, and allowed him to see in terrifying detail that final battle between those four women and that gigantic Grimm.

She looked at him sharply, her glare demanding an explanation, and he sighed. Then he chose a different approach. "What do _you_ think of them?" She narrowed her eyes and her lips pulled back in a snarl, though the sound, if any, was sub-sonic.

After a few seconds, she gave in with a sigh and began her report. "Out of the group, the woman in dark red, whom appears to go by the name 'Rose' appears to be the most powerful, but not the most clear headed in a fight. She is capable of augmenting various 'strengths' of hers, such as her actual strength, and her speed. It is unknown at this time if she is capable augmenting her intelligence or anything else about her. She also seems to posses a powerful glyph like ability, which may be her Semblance, as she was capable of lifting the large Hydra Grimm type above the clouds on her own power. However, she seems to have some sort of personal vendetta against the Grimm, as she went as far as to eat them during combat. It is possible she would have been far more extreme with her battle strategy, had she been against only one Grimm, and not a horde. Unlike most Hunters or Huntresses, she seems to be well versed in several forms of combat, as she was reported using a sword (type of blade unknown), hand-to-hand, knives/daggers (reports of both) dust, and an odd pistol that had three barrels. It should be noted that the pistol was capable of cracking and breaking the one of the Hydra head's bone mask, and that the blade's material was reportedly both sharper and more durable than that of most of both the students and staff of Beacon. She also appeared to be the leader of her group, but seems to have difficulty with words, as she struggled to alert her group that the Hydra had been concussed. Overall she is quite impressive and skilled, with a keen battle sense, but with a questionable level of intelligence and her temper control likewise."

He moved his jaw in thought and gave a thoughtful Hmm. He didn't do anything further outwardly, letting Glynda take the hint and continue, though it took her an awkward moment to do so.

"Snow seems to desire to primarily stay by Rose's side, although Rose appears to leave her behind frequently, serving almost as a lieutenant of sorts. She was seen using a blade similar to the one Rose was wielding - presumably of the same material - and a rather large rifle of unknown caliber and type, though it appears to be some sort of rifle. She appeared to be rather protective of Rose, and she showed a large amount of interest in trying to find out what Cinder Fall, a student from another academy here for the Vytal Frestival, had done to her or her shop. Her combat prowess appear below that of Rose, but still above that of most of the staff of Beacon. She seems to enjoy sass and sarcasm, including in battle. Overall, she seems a decent lieutenant, if a bit too personal with her commander."

He raised an eyebrow and looked her in the eye, an amused smile tugging at his lips. "Oh, so we do know them."

To his great amusement, she actually blushed at the implications and he waited for her to elaborate. "I, met Snow once, while on a mission that was deemed undercover. I was having a nice dinner with an oaf who couldn't stop his endless stream of innuendos and was as much of an ass as I'd been led to believe, but he was my only lead in finding the cache of stolen high-powered explosives, which were, according to evidence, stolen by a society of upper-class swordsmen, and you only gain access by either being born into it or being good enough to be invited, and you can only stay if you are still good enough to be re-invited after a certain period of time. She then interrupted our 'date', violently _drunk_ , and proceeded to blow my cover to smithers, insult him beyond any and all reason, show herself a far more skilled swordsman than the man I was investigating with nothing more than her skill with a dulled blade and some impressive strength after telling me off for choosing such a boor for a date and before telling me where to look to find the explosives I was looking for, which had apparently been stolen by an organized crime group that I have neither seen nor heard of before or since. They called themselves The Twenty Rings."

He chuckled. He motioned with his coffee mug to continue, and after a moment to collect herself, she did so.

"The faunus woman seems to be a sort of enigma. She hasn't spoken much as of yet, and her large amounts of speed were put to good use in striking with lunges and stabs when not avoiding attacks. She used similar weapons to what was reported to be used by Snow, though of a completely different style for both. Has also been reported she is a cat type Fanus, type of cat is narrowed down to Puma, Jaguar, or Leopard. Her stance gives an air of confidence and assurance, with her black ears on proud display. However, there is nothing else I can say at this time, as we just don't know anything else about her, other than that she is currently out front, apparently helping her friend with putting new cobblestones in the courtyard."

"The final member, Dragon, has been shown to have the ability to produce fire, as well as extreme amounts of strength. She seems likely to be the closest member of the group to Rose, though the relationship between the two leans more to familial instead of the romantic. Dragon was reported using the same sorts of weapons as Snow and the faunus. No one managed to see Dragon set the fires, so it is unknown if this was achieved through Dust, Semblance, or some other means. She appears to have a strong sense of family, and seems to attempt to put a large amount of emphasis on this around Rose, though her reasons for this are currently unknown."

"As a whole these women seem to be extremely capable Huntresses, and have a great sense of familiarity amongst them. Although..." She trailed off, and he felt his expression soften as he guessed what was bothering her.

"It's the song they sang, isn't it?" He asked softly, to which she responded with a shuddering nod. He understood, as that same haunting song was still ringing in his head, and he hadn't been outside when they'd sung it. Seemingly wordless, but filled with emotion and savage joys, it rang through his skull even now.

The woman who resembled Ruby Rose was the one who'd sung it first, and while the footage was too grainy to see her expression properly, he could see the joy on it that echoed through her song, whatever the language it was sung in. He closed his eyes as the song played through his head once more. A song somehow inspired thoughts and memories of blood and death and the few times he'd reveled in them, all of them whilst hunting Grimm.

he opened his eyes and stood, grabbing his coffee mug on the way to the door to his office, Glynda following in confusion. He'd have to be careful.

They strode through the halls of Beacon Academy with purpose. He knew that Glynda would have shuttered away her confusion and put on a determined face, same as always, and he was rather glad his green waistcoat, overcoat, and cravat covered his frame well and were somewhat baggy as well, covering his Dust-infused bandages form sight without a single clue to their existence.

They reached the medical wing and he hesitated, stopping them in front of the infirmary's front door. He took a deep breath and opened the door quietly, wanting to be unnoticed in his observation before approaching.

The door opened with only a whisper of sound and he slipped in. He searched for his quarry until he found the red shirt under buckled ammunitions belts and froze when mahogany eyes rested upon one closed silver eye and an eyepatch framed by a familiar face, one he'd seen only yesterday, with the woman from earlier, Snow, worrying by her bedside. Her breathing changed from its restful pattern and the white warrior standing guard perked up a little and began to search for what had disturbed her charge's rest. That got him moving back behind the door rather quickly.

"Is something wrong?" Glynda asked with concern. After all, he'd only been there a few seconds, and normally he watches a few minutes before calling in his blunter companion.

He sighed with a smile and shook his head. "No, simply unanticipated." He said before he put his coffee mug on top of the wall-mounted case holding a fire extinguisher nest to him, before setting his cane against the wall beside knew it was only worrying his second-in-command, but it would be better this way. Less chance of things breaking.

He faced the door once again. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder and he looked over. It was Glynda, looking worried enough to break through her usual facade. "Whatever you saw, you don't have to do it now." His nervousness must really be showing. He knew he really shouldn't be nervous, but he couldn't blame himself for it after what he'd seen in the security footage and what they'd been thinking about just a few short minutes ago.

He smiled and shook his head. "No, she knows I'm here. It'll be better to get it over with now than to deal with her disappointed stare later." He said simply.

'Well,' he thought to himself as he visibly pulled himself together, holding back a wince at the pain the motion incurred. 'At least I won't have to be too careful.'

And so, with a near-silent grunt of effort, he pushed open the larger-than-normal infirmary double doors, basically announcing himself to the room ostentatiously, very unlike his usual silence.

He starting counting the seconds at the first gasp and it was less than a second after the second gasp that it felt like his life was being crushed out of him while his ears tried to bleed after a heart-rending cry of "MR. ARBIGOTTI!"

It really hurt, especially with how the bullets on the belts crushed in on his bumps and bruises, but he smiled because honestly, what else can you do in the face of such honest happiness? "How are you doing Rosie?" He asked, keeping the pain and breathlessness out of his voice as best he could. He couldn't keep it all out, but he'd be the first to admit he wasn't perfect.

She set him down, a little roughly, and began to speak, dusting off imaginary (or was it real?) dirt and rubble off his shoulders and chest as she did so. "Oh, I've been better. Had a rough and tumble with a Hydra earlier and the cliff." She turned her head down to glare and pout at the ground as she muttered "Stupid cliff wouldn't let me pay.", which made no sense whatsoever to him, but she continued talking to him before he could start to analyze her words, smile back as if it had never left and without skipping a beat. "I hope that you've been well since we saw each other yesterday and you look much different without your afro, you know." She paused to let him answer.

He smiled through the pain, much easier now that she wasn't holding him so tightly, and with the smug knowledge in his smile at Glynda's unseen but undoubtedly completely confuzzled look. "Yes, I have, though I would think the difference would be either fairly obvious or difficult to see." He paused to wince as his chest twinged heavily while she nodded in acknowledgement of his point about his fake hair, and then frown at his wince. "I think the fighting earlier today wasn't my best choice ever." He admitted sheepishly.

Her understanding smile returned as she chided him. "Well of course it wasn't!" At his confusion, she elaborated. "You're an experienced Hunter. A little out of practice, but that's ok. What's not okay, and thus your problem, is that other than that Hydra attack in Hollow';s Ground, you've never fought brooded or Blooded Grimm." He blinked at that, trying to understand what she meant. Then she decided to take pity on him. "You remember how that Hydra Minor had made itself a nest out of the mayor's building In Hollow's Ground?"

"That was a _Minor_ Hydra?!" Glynda asked outraged, pulling their attention to her and she looked surprised and afraid as Rose nodded, remembering the destruction of the town all those years ago, back before it was a ghost town.

Rose turned to Glynda long enough to say, "Yeeesss, moving along." (not unkindly or harshly though, and with a bit of a headbob) before turning back to him. "Now, being Nested is right about when a Grimm decides to settle down and start a nest, kinda like a person moving out of their mom's house and moving into their own apartment. That tends to attract others, one way or another, but it means something entirely different when a _Blooded_ Grimm, like that Hydra you saw at Hollow's Ground. When that happens, the Blooded Grimm who has Nested starts to evolve, or if they're already big enough, then they start to produce others, just like the Hydra we killed earlier today. In fact, other Grimm are still there, occasionally appearing in the ruins of Hollow's Ground. We go there every so often to clear out the extra." A nostalgic look came over her face. "Kinda like the family trips we used to take."

"I'm curious," he began. "What exactly makes a Grimm 'Blooded'?"

"We're not exactly sure." The blonde, Dragon, spoke up from behind him, startling him as she entered. "We don't know what, biologically speaking, makes the difference between a Grimm as you know them from a Blooded Grimm, like what we learned against. What we do know is that Blooded Grimm have blood running through their veins, making them tougher, stronger, basically more powerful in almost every sense of the word and much, much smarter. If it takes a Grimm 30 years to be able to take on a trainee hunter like most of the kids here in the infirmary, then it takes a Blooded Grimm anywhere from 3 months to 3 years, if active and good at Recon, maybe up to fifteen if it's in a nicely secluded area and doesn't get into many fights." She summed up simply, the casual tone chilling Ozpin throughout his spine. "But it's the Evos and Nested that you really gotta be careful about, especially when they're one and the same." She added as she came to stand next to Rose, long brown coat tossed over her shoulder and her many exposed muscles gleaming with sweat in the dying light of the day as the dark-haired amber-eyed faunus stood at her side. "Because they're exponentially more powerful and smarter, as well as being able to summon help from other Grimm pretty much at command, and all of them are extraordinarily tough." She gave Rose a stare that bored into the other girl rather powerfully, even if the red-frosted brunette seemed completely unaffected. "So how bloody were you when they finally cleaned you up?"

"Completely covered." Snow said. "She was out cold when we reached the corpse, fifteen feet inside the monster of a kaiju as she was, and had to be bathed in bleach before the hardening stuff would start to come off. Multiple times!" She gesticulated wildly to help show her annoyance.

"And how is it that her skin _isn't_ peeling off like the color from her clothes?" Dragon asked pointedly.

"Eh, probably just the same freakish stuff that we've been dealing with for the past few years since coming to Vale." Rose waved it off dismissively, though Ozpin took interest in that statement. At Snow's yawn, however, he decided to shelve it for tomorrow, though a niggling thought of a reminder had him decide to put that off for a second.

He opened his mouth to speak when Dragon grabbed Rose in a bear hug, trembling slightly.

"I'm okay, Ash, sheesh." Was Rose's simple, exasperated reply.

"I know. But, I mean," She paused and trembled, tears about to spill evident in her voice. "Jesus, R, you almost _died_. We almost _lost you_."

There was a slight chuckle from Rose as Ozpin imagined a slight smile. "You didn't lose me to the epileptic trees, you aren't going to lose me now to an overgrown dog."

A few moments later, Dragon pulled away from Rose, the former straightening the latter's hair as she calmed herself while the latter brushed away the tears and some dust off the taller woman's shoulders. At the small cloud of red dust filling the air, Rose asked, "Mistrali Clay?"

Dragon nodded. "Yeah, found some bricks down in the basement, figured I would start rebuilding the courtyard, onna fact a we ripped it up, an' a'cuz the dusty clay really helps ward off Lesser Grimm."

Rose smiled at her in pride as Ozpin filed that previously unknown fact away.

Just then, a barely audible sniff ripped through the near-silence and all six of them tensed up a little as they looked over in the direction of the sound. Fluidly, and faster than either Ozpin or Glynda could react, the four of them didn't walk nor glide nor fly but damn near _flowed_ over to the pair of beds. As Ozpin saw when he reached the curtains, this pair held Ruby Rose and Wiess Schnee, both cradling their now-useless weapons, though the heiress had the presence of mind to try and hide her shame. Rose perked up for a moment, then said "Be right back." before dashing off. Not at Semblence-enhanced or Aura-enhanced speeds, but quickly nonetheless, dodging around Ozpin and his cane before quickly making her way back, going through the few privacy curtains in the way of a direct line of travel. She reappeared from behind the curtains on Ruby's side by going under them and lept over the brunette's bed before grabbing Weiss's rapier, ignoring said white-et's protests, and pouring the silvery contents of a small bottle down the length of the long blade, whose thin length had been separated equally into four straight sections.

Slowly, the silvery substance built itself up until it appeared to be seamless between the separated parts of the formerly one-piece blade. Rose tilted her head as she examined the rapier, seemingly oblivious to everyone's wide-eyed stares, including his own. She nodded authoritatively at it before spikes grew out of nowhere on the blade, aiming for her face. She pushed it away from her as she scolded it. "Hey, no need to be so _snippy_." She said as she placed the blade by Weiss' side once more. "Besides you don't need my approval, you need hers." Turning to Weiss, she appeared sheepish for a moment. Not that Weiss was paying any attention to the Ruby-alike's face instead of her weapon. "Sorry its not the best fix in the world, but it is one that will last you for quite a while, and will give you an ace in the hole I think you desperately need."

Then she turned to set herself on Ruby's bed and held the child close. "Shhh, it's okay. It's alright. It's not the end of the world, sweetie."

The black-haired faunus, who, Ozpin suddenly noticed, looked distinctly like Blake of Team RWBY, shook her head and muttered something under her breath in astonishment. He couldn't make it out, though it sounded vaguely Vacuan.

"Here's an idea." Rose said to Ruby. "How about this: We take your weapon and rebuild it. Scrap what metal is left and the melting pot into the parts for a new weapon."

"R-replace Crescent Rose?" Ruby asked, horrified.

Rose shook her head. "I didn't say replace. It'll be like a full-body upgrade. Crescent Rose Version 2.0, in a sense. It will still be your original weapon, but with newer, better parts. And forged even better, accounting for the mistakes you didn't know to correct the first time around. And I have just the material in mind for the blades themselves."

"What?" Ruby asked, starting to calm down, now that the prospect of forever losing her weapon was fading.

Rose grinned. "Well, we can use the metal from the first version perfectly well for the outermost blade, with inlays and secondary layers of Superior Steel, then Inferior Grimslayer Metal for the inner sheath and Superior Grimslayer Metal for the innermost blade. Then you can have a tournament blade, as well as two or more holdout methods for when you actually need it without switching weapons. You'll have to re-train with it massively, just like Weiss, but it'll be worth it in the end." She pulled back a little, loosening her hug as she smiled softly at Ruby, before wiping away the tear tracks. Suddenly, the older girl frowned, causing Ruby to frown in return.

"What is it?" She asked.

Rose cocked her head to the side in consideration, then smirked. "Well, it appears as though I have a gift for you, Ruby Rose." At Ruby's sudden excitement, Rose held out a calming hand. "I do need you to understand, however, that this is something very precious to me. I will only give it to you on one condition. That you treat it with care and respect, as if you held the lives of your entire family in your hand inside this gift. The lives and wellbeing of your father, sister, uncle, teammates, and yes, even your dog. Do you understand?"

Swallowing at the solemnity of that last statement, Ruby meekly nodded, then straightened up as well as she was able (given her injuries), and gave a firm determined nod.

Rose studied the girl for a moment longer before nodding in affirmation and reached up to her neck to tear off the collar of her shirt, the unevenness of the rip showing that something had been held there, inside the collar. Slowly, deliberately, she unwrapped it, and Ozpin felt his jaw drop in shock as Ruby's fell in awe. He fully recognized this "'gift'. Thought it lost to the wilds more than a decade ago.

It was a necklace, with a simple silver chain holding four gemstones strung along it, surrounding an ornate silver cross. A Ruby in a Black wire setting, a Diamond in a Polished Platinum setting, followed by the cross' top and connecting ring, a fairly simple affair made of steel at the top of the cross, a Black Diamond in a White Gold setting, and a Yellow Topaz in a round Cast Iron setting.

"It's beautiful." Ruby breathed out.

Rose nodded as she gently transferred possession of the necklace to Ruby as if handing over a holy relic made of thin artisanal glass. This necklace belong to the greatest Paragon of a Hunter who ever lived. The only true monster that I have counted as an honor and a privilege to meet and know." She paused to help Ruby with the chain's relatively difficult clasp. "Summer Rose. Your mother and my friend, and a truly famous and powerful Hunter to many." Her face turned away, a sadly reminiscing smile gracing it. "Dragon told her that she'd live on well with the stories about us in the mead halls of Joranna after she died, and those kinds of stories are truly rare, with such exceptional people doubly so."

The faunus made a soft, astonished sentence in what sounded like Mistrali before Dragon shook her head with a smile. "Blake, rest your weary head. It's been a long and injuringly eventful day, and we're in no state to try and understand those tiny parts of Rose's brain that aren't drenched in blood and guts."

The faunus woman made a soft, agreeing grunt as she moved away while Snow approached.

A hand lay gently on Rose's shoulder as Snow looked down on her kindly. "C'mon GrimGurl217, let's go sleep."

Gently, Rose disentangled herself from the red-tipped brunette slowly falling asleep around her waist and then began to walk away. "Y'know Blake? You don't really speak in a monotone. You have emotion, while a monotone is exactly as advertised, a single, continuous tone of voice with zero changes or emphasis, like that one teach we had together, ah, what was his name again? Oh, yeah, Alan Wrench." Then she promptly belly-flopped into a faceplant, with the tone of the crack that rang out telling Ozpin that the floor had actually cracked underneath the now sleeping store owner, rather than the other way around.

Dragon snorted as Snow sighed, exasperated and fond. "Yep, that's Rosie for ya." the blonde said as said brunette began to snore loudly.

Then Snow came over and sat down, cross-legged, on top of Rose, apparently settling down to sleep.

"Are you sure that's a good idea? He asked.

Snow nodded. "It'll keep her from wandering off in the middle of the night and it'll wake us up if she does."

"That's not quite what I meant."

"I know." Snow replied with a yawn and a tired smile. "She's never complained-" She paused to think a moment. "Well, of anything really, but she's never showed signs of back pains or other damage after nights like this, so it should be fine." She closed her eyes to sleep.

"Wait." The voice was stern and commanding, which was a little odd as it was coming from Weiss. The not-so odd part was the frustration apparent in both voice and face. "Just who _are_ you people?"

Snow smiled sadly at her. "Sometimes, it's better not to know. I know that from experience. But I'll tell ya anyway. The way Rose would probably put it, we are a Monster" she pointed at Rose, then herself "a Saint," then at Dragon "a Blacksmith, or maybe she'd say a Dragon-"

"She'd say dog." Dragon said with a tired shrug. "She'd keep me short and insultingly simple."

Snow nodded, conceding the point. Then she pointed at the Faunus woman and finished with "And a Cat. I'd call us fighters, a killer a knight, a berserker, and a traveler." Dragon has her own labels for us and so does Blake."

"But there _is_ a title that we all agree on." The busty blonde in a trenchcoat and armor-plated cut-finger gloves noted as she came in close. "It was given to us and we've found that it fits."

"The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." was the Faunus woman's simple reply, the only words he'd heard out of her in Valean, although something about it told him she wasn't actually speaking the same dialect. Then she turned around and picked up Blake Belladonna of Team RWBY from the stomach and carried her towards another bed like a mother cat retrieving an errant cub, effectively cutting off the conversation as it stood, allowing the children to regain their strength while Dragon simply draped herself over Snow, stomach over the white-haired head without bend as if Snow was a statue, and then began snoring even louder than Rose had been (she'd stopped snoring some time ago) as the faunus woman returned to sit, cross-legged like Snow was, on top of Dragon as if they were a totem pole.

Recognizing his own fading strength, Ozpin left the infirmary, holding off on relying on Glynda for physical strength as long as he could, though he still had to rely on her even after he reclaimed his cane, cup left on top of the fire extinguisher box as if forgotten.

And amidst all the hubub, Cinder lay not too far away, forgotten and asleep. Gathering her strength for when she'd strike back at the swordsman that had punched her into the wall.

* * *

**Finally! She's here! She's back! In fact, the whole family is back in town! Oh, this is just too good!**

***Grin***

**Ack! Put that bone down! It belongs to the Horsemen!**


	11. Pack 'Em Up, Head 'Em Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's late, but this is the end of this story. Not the end of this series though, so stay looking if you want to learn more about poor Rosie. :)  
> And the beautiful man I show off here. ;]

The blonde man grinned at what he saw. His friends, his family, extended as it was, were all working together, packing up and getting ready to leave their impromptu campground. Two of his seven daughters, who were, interestingly enough, all blondes except for his redheaded Vera, were helping to organize the chaos of the caravan leaving behind their trash in organized piles as they prepared to move on with their lives. Once again, he was saddened by the lack of presence of his son, Jaune, but he could only assume that the young blonde was doing something important to him. Sadly enough, it reminded him of his own spirit journey, many years ago, and that other time that he ran away from home to pursue a dream that his wife had complained about a few times before he pursued it. Nowadays, nobody really questioned it, but a few had noticed it, after his return.

But as he watched his caravan reassemble themselves into a force of nature before the final order to move out, he couldn't help but smile in pride, watching as his family - genetic or not - working with all the others under his charge, all worked together to make sure the journey and the preparations to leave went as smoothly as possible. He took a moment to watch those busy little bees, working together smoothly as clockwork and making him proud as he focused on a few specific spots that especially caught his eye.

Daina was bent over one of the trucks, trying to service the engine again; they'd have to stop by a town soon and buy parts and scrap. Karina was helping pull a few palleted crates over to a diesel Mack truck which had long since lost its hood. Or "bonnet", as the Brits would say.

Well, as William tended to say, way back when. He had a good British accent, so that counted for something, right?

Over to his right, a spritely and energetic muscular man with dark hair happily pulled along his girlfriend, well, wife in all but deed really, who happened to be an interesting demure woman with a _Taser_ , of all things, constantly on her person. Darcy was always an interesting character, often to be found tinkering with her latest and (at each turn) greatest version of a Taser yet. That, and her subdued personality and actions were always odd when compared to her daughter's. Bruce was almost her exact polar opposite, highly active, trying to encourage everyone with his boundless energy, sometimes breaking out into silly speeches just for the hilarity factor (or so he thought) and was a martial artist master who had an affection for the simplistic classics. Which was why his son being such an odd sloth was always weird to this particular blonde.

All around them, the people were helping each other in various ways, and the slackers and those less capable at handling the heavy stuff were watching the perimeter for raiders, bandits, and Grimm. Like a well-made clock.

Then a redhead in a strangely steampunk-ian facsimile of Grecian armor pulled up next to him, as prepared to fight off and kill any Grimm that stood in their way as he was, and they gave each other a discreet hug. This was no time to be caught making out with his wife. They cared, yes, but they were packing up to leave! He didn't want to be a hypocrite by rushing everyone else to be ready, then make them wait for him while he and his wife tried to suck each others' faces off with nothing but mouths and tongues.

Once somebody sounded the "All clear", signalling everyone was ready, he gave a gentlemanly wave to his wife, and a quiet "Shall we?" With a sultry smile at her (which she returned) as they went over to their car, an ages-old gasoline-driven vehicle that they knew was a silver 2002 Subaru Forester.

They entered the old car that had been refurbished and rebuilt from dust and less to shine once more, and chose a song to sing, just as they always did when leaving a campsite behind. This one fit them leaving rather well.

As the first strains of an accordion (of all things. Not that he was complaining) began to play out over the radios, they began to sing along to the song, one made by The Kongos, called Come With Me Now.

The lyrics came and went from his head as the ever-green deciduous trees of this particular strange forest passed by and he noticed how pretty they were, even as he smashed through some of them with the reinforced body of the vehicle, but the words went something like this.

**Come with me now**   
**Come with me now**

**War, go with me now**   
**I'm gonna take you down**   
**War, go with me now**   
**I'm gonna show you how**   
**War, go with me now**   
**I'm gonna take you down**   
**War, go with me now**   
**I'm gonna show you how**

You know, that actually reminded him of teaching the project leaders how to fight. How to throw a punch, how to block and dodge. How to shoot.

**Afraid to lose control**   
**And caught up in this world**   
**I've wasted time, I've wasted breath**   
**I think I've thought myself to death**

And wasn't that the truth? Sometimes, they were so scared to do much, but his convoy always seemed to pull through in the end. He was always overanalyzing things and that had been one of the biggest things that had kept him from noticing his crush until she decided to grab him to suck face right when he least expected it.

Full armor, eating noodles whilst in the middle of a bunch of recently slaughtered Grimm.

And she stole all his noodles right from his mouth!

**I was born without this fear**   
**Now only this seems clear**   
**I need to move, I need to fight**   
**I need to lose myself tonight**

Of course kissing her was always the most clear thing that ever happened.

Until one of his kids interrupts. Man, the number of times his son had bumbled in during a tender moment really made him think his son had inherited his social _blindness_ in frackin' _spades!_

**War, go with me now**   
**I'm gonna take you down**   
**War, go with me now**   
**I'm gonna show you how**

**I think with my heart and I move with my head**   
**I open my mouth and it's something I've read**   
**I stood at this door before, I'm told**   
**But a part of me knows that I'm growing too old**

Yeah, that was a thing for the entirety of the Arc family, or he hadn't renamed himself John-Luke Pikerd!

Every person in his family, both before the cataclysm and after, "adopted" or not, acted on their emotions first and foremost, and sought to protect others once aware, and loved doing it.

Doesn't mean they were idiots, as they were pretty skilled and often thought strategically when fighting. Or that they weren't without their faults, like when Sarah and Cassie both fell for Maxine and Carter _at the same time!_ And wasn't that a laugh! he thought with a grin.

Or that they weren't aware of the fact that they could die. That was something that had long been there, and almost every one of them had made peace with that, outside of their youngest, like his son.

**Confused what I thought for something I felt**   
**Confuse what I feel with something that's real**   
**I tried to sell my soul last night**   
**Funny, he wouldn't even take a bite**

That was something that happened, back in the Horsemen Bar. He'd actually _tried_ to sell out, confused as he was, but the first friend he'd made, who seemed both the most innocent and most deviously evil of them all, kept him on the straight and narrow, even slapping some sense into him when he got into drugs, partly by just locking him in her room and forcing him to eat Chicken Flavor Ramen noodles (which give him a huge headache). That got him to straighten out pretty quickly.

**Far away**   
**I heard him say (come with me now)**   
**Don't delay**   
**I heard him say (come with me now)**

Even now, sometimes it was like he could hear her, calling out to him. Telling him it would be alright. Telling him what to do. Whether it was defusing the bomb left in the barracks (and that reminded him of that one song from the Spirit Engine 2 Soundtrack) or talking him through killing off a Beowolf pack.

**Far away**   
**I heard him say (come with me now)**   
**Don't delay**   
**I heard him say (come with me now)**

**War, go with me now**   
**I'm gonna take you down**   
**War, go with me now**   
**I'm gonna show you how**

{ **And, as always, he and his beautiful wife rocked out to the guitar solo. And things were good.** }

**Afraid to lose control**   
**And caught up in this world**   
**I've wasted time, I've wasted breath**   
**I think I've thought myself to death**

**I was born without this fear**   
**Now only this seems clear**   
**I need to move, I need to fight**   
**I need to lose myself tonight**

**War, go with me now**

How he'd felt when he saw his wife.

How he'd felt when he looked over at her, and decided FUKKIT, KISS! (and he did so right then while driving)

**War, go with me now**   
**I'm gonna take you down**   
**War, go with me now**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so this last part is brought to you by ElementalDAR (after his/her stuff was seen by me and my brain, anyway). Go watch their Come With Me Now RWBY AMV. GO!
> 
> Also, apparently, the official lyrics don't actually have the "War/Walk" before come/go (or the "go") with me now, so I just used what I heard.


End file.
